^^

GM has (I think) twice as many retired UAW workers as they have UAW workers working now.

A lot of stuff is now shopped out to non-union companies.

Also it's MAD to pay retired workers health care. We have a system to pay healthcare for retired workers; it's midicare. It's not great but it's better than nothing.

IMO these workers are getting the Cadillac of health care. Also They are being paid pension and healthcare for work they did years ago and so in other words GM is paying them today (out of income) for cars they sold years ago. It's like something the federal government would dream up.

Plus health care has been growing at 10-20% a year for a while. Health care probably costs GM 3 times more than they projected for retired workers.

Why the health care is imortant is b/c GM need to pay $5B a year that money can't be used for R&D.

Even if retirees paid $50 or $100/mo for health care it won't make that much of a dent. I pay about $1K/mo for health care. All you guys who get health care from work (even if you pay a bit yourself) probably don't realize how expensice it is.

 

I usually agree with you but now I don't. The Accords and Civics my family has purchased in the mid 80's until present time, have always been on par qualitywise with my 2 CRX's and my S2000 which were of course assembled in Japan.

I am slightly biased in that my wife is a production associate @ Honda of America in Marysville. The difference in her words is "the production tolerances are tighter on the Acura models than the Honda" as one would expect in purchasing an Acura. She assembles both Accords and Acura Tl's.

 

"BTW: I didn't realize the Unions could force people to pay dues even if they weren't members. I also didn't realize that Clinton "helped the working man" by repealing that law. Sounds like BS (that it happened) to me. "

The reason for people paying to the union regardless of actual membership has to do with collective bargaining. The contracts the union negotiates benefit all the workers in those jobs, and GM and Ford could not pay non-union workers less than union, and deliver fewer benefits, otherwise the company could just refuse to hire union employees. So every worker benefits from union negotiations, and as such, they pay the union to support the organization, regardless of membership status.

You may think the unions have grown into a larger liability than a benefit for the workers, but the fact is that without unions, the disparity of wealth in this country would be similar to what you find in third world countries, where the people with the capital tend to keep it, and the average worker has nothing by comparison. One major problem with unions today is the human component - union employees never want to approve a contract that doesn't deliver more than the last contract (human nature - management doesn't have a monopoly on greed). In addition, many, many people are raised on the concept of "us vs. them" when it comes to management. There is this illogical belief that there is always some ulterior motive on the part of any manager, and the ingrained conviction that "the worker" is always reasonable and right. If you have never been part of a union, it is hard to understand, but one thing to keep in mind is mob rule is never very smart, and unions tend to be mob rule. Often the laziest and most contentious members hold influential positions, as the hard worker doesn't want to deal with all the petty politics and crap that goes on in unions. Young union members also tend to have this glorified, romantic notion of strikes, and revel in the "glory days" of strikes gone by, imagining themselves as some sort of vague revolutionary striking a blow for "the common man." The problem is human nature on both sides, not unions or management specifically.

 

gm is having major problems right now and the company could go under.... honda dn toyota don't have problems like gm.... so this will not affect them as much as it would gm...

gm =

 

Just wanted to add my .02. The foreign manufacturers pay their factory workers wages that are competitive to the negotiated union wages. The main difference is the benefits. Whereas the domestics have a pension fund and EXTREMELY generous health provisions, the foreign manufacturers provide what would be considered a standard benefits package (401K and HMO package). It isnt like the foreign car companies are stiffing their workers, it's just that the domestic companies are paying out "executive" benefits to their workers. I wouldn't mind having those benefits myself, but not at the risk of bankrupting my company (and being laid off). As it is now, GM starts with a $1600 deficit on every car they make. Put in another way, if GM and Honda designed and built exactly the same car using exactly the same techniques, GM would have to charge $1600 more just to be equal to Honda. And we know they can't, either from reputation (justified or not) or from rebates (it's like sales crack - once you hook'em on it, it's almost impossible to get buyers to accept no rebates).

I haven't decided if this benefits problem is either nobody's fault of everybody's fault. Sure, the domestics agreed to these terms during the last labor negotiations, but the union should understand that without a few givebacks, it will be nearly impossible to completely turn around the company.

There was a recent businessweek article that stated that GM puts less than half the amount of research into their new cars as Toyota. Whether this is due to operational decisions, or because of other costs, I don't know. But it is just another reason that GM seems to be in a major rut.

No_really, you make some really good points. The Corvette is a really good car, as well as the entire Cadillac range. Unfortunately they are not made in the volume to really help refill GM's coffers. And while it is true that the big three beat out the foreign manfacturers in sales numbers, too many of them are to large fleet accounts (like rental agencies) or are heavily discounted. Market share is important, but it needs to go with profitability. I really do hope that the big three are able to turn around their fortunes for two reasons: genuine competition means that we will see better products from everyone, and with better prices, and because GM, Ford, and Chrysler are such a major part of the US economy, that any financial stumble they make will affect all of us.

 

I would not blame unions of today for contracts negotiated in the past. The reason Hyundai is opening a plant here is that it is cheaper to build a car for sale in the US on US soil. Even if workers are paid more, productivity is higher and shipping is much less. If Hyundai builds its cars here, even if profits go to Korea, it is still good for US because it employs our workers who pay taxes here to build schools and fund health care etc. Even if you are against the UAW (and I don't think they are angels to be looked up to all the time) it must tell you something that a Korean company finds it an economically viable decision to open a factory here.

As far as US workers and build quality, for the most part, build quality is most often not the result of the auto workers or the designers themselves but a reflection of management decisions. While some would like to think that american engineers are a bunch of idiots and the Japanese are so superior or the Germans, it aint true. Those companies may have the foresight to invest in technology where the big three don't, but our engineers could still accomplish the same feats.

If panel gaps are too big on US cars, or switches burn out and burst into flames, it is not usually because the US engineer is an idiot, it is because some US MBA or other exec said "build it cheaper" or "buy the cheapest part". Other brands have spent the extra upfornt for technology or better quality parts up front to make profits over the long haul, where the big three have looked at the bottom line in the immediate future. Total QUality Management (TQM) and Demming will have the last laugh.

 

i agree, it is economically viable to build a factory in the US, but not in the northern US.

the biggest distintion is those agency fees that fill union coffers.

no one in their right mind would set up a car factory in Michigan today. that is why their unemployment sucks.

 

Well it is also a cultural thing. The Asian culture is like CEO and executives work with the workers in a large extended family setting. They made decent money, but not U.S.A. CEO money. Everyone pitch in to help the "family" to improve its products and stuff.

For American car companies, the bureaucracy is out of control, everyone is trying to take a piece from the pie. (executives trying to extract as much as they could to beef up their salaries, bonus, and golden parachute, UAW people want to squeeze out every single drop of resources out of their company. It is very short sighted and we are seeing the result now.

I am not saying whose culture is better than the other. The things happening here can happen in Japan, too. Unfortunately, things are not looking too bright for the big three here.

 

[QUOTE=lukemc01,May 23 2005, 01:26 PM] Just wanted to add my .02.

 

Gonna toss in my .02...

I have a close friend that does engineer work in a handful of plants (non-auto) in the NW Ohio area and a family bis that sells products to the auto industry (world wide) along with a few friends who has fathers that work/have worked in some of the big 3 plants.

In a nutshell - The overseas plants in general are a much tighter run ship, inside and out. You start to break it down past hard production numbers/quality control and look at worker moral and motivation, it can get dismal. The attitude of (imo) alot of union workers is poor at best. 'Not my job' just about sums it up.

Back in the coal mining days we needed unions. Now they just carry too much baggage and there are plenty of government programs/standards that are in place that covers what they initially where needed for.