The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => The Fridge => Topic started by: Noname on May 31, 2009, 04:04:48 PM
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I blame it on the greed and short-sightedness of both the management and the labor unions.
The management thought that it could simply make whatever kind of car it wanted to and that the public would just buy it regardless of quality or fuel efficiency.
The unions wanted extra generous payments, and conditions which were unsustainable, such as retirement after 30 years, which meant that one could start work at 18, retire at 48, and collect a pension plus full health benefits for the rest of their lives.
There is a LOT more to say about this, but I will hold off on any "rant" until others have had their say as well.
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There's nothing wrong with being able to retire after 30 straight years of working. Hell, see how good you feel after doing hard labor for 30 consecutive years. :anger 48 is OLD when you've been doing manual labor your whole life. You feel like you're 70. That's not unreasonable. And workers asking for $5,000/month isn't unreasonable either. You need that much to live these days and they make that company billions. They're filing bankruptcy because the company department heads made some really stupid decisions and were too greedy to think straight. Of course they're not paying for it. They've all got hundreds of millions of dollars invested in gold that the government can't take. It's the little guys (the workers) that are going to suffer, not the heads of the company. :angry:
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Standard retirement age is 65. Retiring at 48 is something that other industrial workers, such as those at Caterpillar or Boeing, could only dream about. As it is, auto workers in Japan don't retire at 48, neither do those in Korea. They know what it takes to make a car, and that is why they are out-competing us on our own soil.
I agree with you on the executives part, though.
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You forget that the average person holds 6 different jobs for an at least 2 years a peace before they find their permanent job that they're going to do for the rest of their life. Someone would be lucky to find their permanent job by 30 and most don't find it until 35 or even later. So even if they agreed to retirement after 30 working years, most would still not be able to retire until 70 or later. What they're asking for is NOT unreasonable.
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Many commentators have said that being given a pension and full health benefits at age 48 is not only unreasonable, but it has led to the bankruptcy that GM now finds itself in.
While it may be a good thing for the workers, there is also the bottom line to consider.
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Those bastards will try to put the blame anywhere besides themselves. The truth of the matter is after a company gets so big they don't care so much anymore because no matter how bad it gets, they're still gonna be set for life. It takes less than $500 to make a car in most cases and they're selling them for $50,000. That's totally absurd and they're paying their employees dirt. I'm glad they're going bankrupt. I hope Walmart does too. :anger
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You know, it costs them a lot more then $500 when labor costs, energy, and parts are factored in... not to mention pensions and healthcare.
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There are mistakes on both sides here. Management of GM made a mistake when they didn't guess the market correctly and had no small car offerings when gas prices went through the roof. You aren't going to sell Hummers in that environment. The UAW isn't free of guilt either. Some of the contracts are to die for...$20 + per hour, pensions, 3/4 pay when you've been released from a job...sign me up for this stuff! It doesn't pay in the end because now they'll lose that contract and their job in one swoop.
GM needs bankruptcy to clear out overhead that they aren't using, and renegotiate contracts that are more in line with the competition so they can sell cars at the same price as the competition.
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The UAW's contracts made sense when there was no significant competition... particularly after World War II, when our major competitors were either in ruins (such as Japan) or were not trading with us (like the USSR.) In this atmosphere, GM did very well, and sold a lot of cars to a public who had few non-American alternatives... this led to the workers being able to win so many concessions that GM was nicknamed "generous motors" for what they did.
It came back to bite them in the end; the cheap oil and lack of competition didn't last forever... and the workers came to believe that the conditions that they were used to having were their rights, rather than privileges.
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It's official, GM is now bankrupt. However, there is still hope for it to make a fresh start and gain back the great name it once had.
The story can be found here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/01/...opStoryHeadline (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/01/business/main5053916.shtml?tag=topStory;topStoryHeadline)
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy is GM's last chance. They don't pull it off here, it's over.
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Very sad. GM used to be the world's largest company just a couple of decades ago. Now, it looks uncertain as to what will happen. Still, if they do something such as split the company up into smaller ones, it might be useful in the long run, as America will have more than just three auto companies, and that the profitable units of GM won't be weighed down by the unprofitable ones.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/01/news/compa...uptcy/index.htm (http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/01/news/companies/gm_bankruptcy/index.htm)
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GM does need to be reorganized in order to emerge from bankruptcy as a viabe company..
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I only hope that whatever company/companies emerge from this wreck are indeed strong enough to compete... GM used to have the advantage of economies of scale... and in the chaos resulting from its decline, its competition will certainly snatch away market share from it...
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Well, now GMs units are being split up; a Chinese company bought Hummer; I hope they realize that this is likely to be a bad investment...
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Saturn's been sold too. This is what GM needs to do to stay afloat....less overhead, less car models, less clones (same car under different nameplaces). Saturn used to be unique with those plastic body panels, and they weren't making anything unique anymore so that's why Saturn dropped. Hummer's demise is kind of self-explanatory. Pontiac was selling clones of other cars in the GM stable.
The market didn't do that....management did. Plain and simple.
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Let's hope that Penske can do a better job at running Saturn... at least we will have more than three car companies now... we have four... although one is bankrupt and another is about to be owned by Fiat.