Several people have hit on reasons why the big three are in trouble but no one has mentioned the main reason. THE UAW. I saw an interesting report this week. It went into some of the reasons why the big three are having so much trouble these days. It mentioned the perceived but not actual superiority of Japanese cars as a small factor. It mentioned the import tariff imbalances-5% on a car imported here and 20% on an American car imported into countries like Japan. It mentioned the impact of government regulation like Cafe standards and safety standards that foreign makers do not have to deal with. But the most telling was the cost of production. It costs the American manufacturers 53% more, FIFTY THREE PERCENT MORE, to produce a car than it costs a foreign manufacturer to produce a comparable model. Why? CEO compensation? Partly, but the disparity between what American CEOs and foreign CEOs are paid is not very big. Materials? No. No real difference there. The biggest disparity in cost? LABOR. That's right. The cost of maintaining the pay and benefits of union workers and former union workers is killing the American auto industry, much like it did the American steel industry. The potential government bailout is not seen so much as a bailout of the big three as it is a bailout of the UAW. Many opponents of the bailout argue that it will only serve to postpone an inevitable failure by temporarily funding un-supportable union labor costs and that it would be more beneficial to let GM, Ford, and possibly Chrysler file for bankruptcy protection or fail completely and renig on the union contracts. A pretty horrible situation and a pretty horrible choice to make. Thanks UAW. What are all those wonderful benefits and pay plans worth after they kill your employer? All the union guys will refuse to believe it and try to cite other causes but the numbers do not lie. Un-supportable union labor costs are the main cause of the potential death of the American auto industry.[/QUOT
Boy did you ever tell the truth ther UAW is about put the BIG THREE OUT
I work for a company with the UAW in it. Guarentee if it wasn't for the UAW, this 108 year old company wouldn't have made it that far. If companies would treat their employees half decent there would be no need for unions.
There have been text books written about how Mack tried to bust the union. If it wasn't for the UAW pushing their way into the southern plant, the company would have went belly up in the 80's. People were fired if they took too long in the restroom. Some people were hired and didn't even know what a pliers was.
Unions have their purpose but they also hurt. Seniority rules, I'll be loosing my job in less than a year. I do my share of work but I see guys with 35+ years do NOTHING... 0% work. They walk around and ***** about the company, talk about their cars, or what they did over the weekend and I'm the one doing the work.
So, before you ***** about the UNIONS..do some research and see how it has allowed people to put food on the table as well, and kept people from working 60 hour weeks for $7.50/hour with little or no benefits. then ***** about the people it does save and shouldn't. You want to *****, ***** about the corporate greed or the European companies buying up corporate america and moving it to mexico or to asia. hell thank our executive office for signing these trade agreements.