DUmmies continue to misunderstand why automakers collapsed

[BannedFromDU]

UpInArms  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat May-02-09 01:04 PM
Original message
Chrysler workers, public upset over plans to shutter local site
   
Source: Kenosha News

The potential closing of the Kenosha Engine Plant raised anger, disappointment and some hope from plant employees and those concerned about the plant.

The Kenosha Engine Plant is one of eight Chrysler plants scheduled to close by the end of 2010, as indicated in the company’s bankruptcy filing. All Chrysler plants are scheduled to close as of Monday through the end of bankruptcy proceedings, which is expected to last between four and six weeks.

Robert Earl, who has worked at the plant since August 1978, said there was some surprise to the timing of Friday’s announcement, but not the tone.

<snip>

Pam Christensen, 53, of Kenosha, whose husband William, 55, works at the plant, said she’s angry because of the sacrifices workers have made over the years. Christensen said most people she knows are shocked because the workers had just voted on the concessions to keep the company viable. Her husband had just celebrated his 30-year anniversary with the automaker.

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Gregorian 
   Sat May-02-09 03:26 PM
Response to Original message

4. It's too bad businesses aren't democracies.
   
Edited on Sat May-02-09 03:28 PM by Gregorian
All of the sacrifices out of the goodness of their hearts that the workers make are for naught. The companies go where the board of directors takes them. And in the case of cars, we had the opportunity to lead, and we were lazy. We continued pumping out eight cylinder monsters. It's so much like drug dependency I can hardly think of a better analogy. We could have been coming out as the leaders in what was obviously going to be a new time for the automobile. We could have made our lives smooth and easy. We could have been the world's leaders. And by "we" I mean the people who drove this mess into the ground. The ones making the big money. Oil companies, auto executives, and ultimately the people. We bought Bush just like we bought V8's. And that sounds awfully accusatory. After all, Bush lost. That's not my point. We could have stopped the attack on Iraq. We could have demanded impeachment. We could have demanded 80 mile per gallon cars.

If the workers had a say in where those companies went with their products, I can almost guarantee that they would have voted for their future. And the future was not in monster v8's. It was, and is, in efficient cars. There's 7 billion of us now, it should have been obvious that we can't all act like it's 1955. Am I wrong that the workers are essentially powerless? I may be missing something.

     This has finally pissed me off. Lurking DUmbasses, try to get this: THE AUTOMAKERS DID NOT FALL BECAUSE THEY MADE AND SOLD SUVS AND LARGE SEDANS. THEY FELL BECAUSE NO MATTER WHAT THEY MADE, THEY HAD TO TACK ON TO THE PRICE TO PAY FOR THE ALCOHOLIC, CRACK-ADDLED UNION WORKERS IN PERPETUITY.

     Guess what, morons: people don't WANT hybrids. You just want people to DRIVE them. The only thing that kept Detroit alive this long was the profit margin from SUVs and large trucks, which brings us to an irony: you stupid ****ing latte-sipping Leonardo DiCaprio sycophants NEEDED SUVs and trucks to get made and sold so the automakers could continue to pay what amounts to a tax to UAW workers so they'd have healthcare, forever. THAT'S NOT HOW COMPANIES ARE SUPPOSED TO RUN.

     Suppose it IS how companies are supposed to run. Suppose carmakers are just naturally supposed to kowtow to unions so that high school dropouts can make $40/hr to fasten screws halfway and crookedly apply molding. With that privately-funded welfare state in place, wouldn't you pretty much need to let the public decide what product you ought to be selling? Uh, probably so. And that's exactly what the carmakers did. Holy ****ing shit, they said at board meetings, those polish-sausage-sucking get-drunk-at-lunch that's-not-my-jobbers cost HOW much in healthcare? We better figure out how to sell a LOT of cars at a HIGH margin, because God knows that once you slap foreign import duties AND our welfare, er, labor costs on these babies, we can't sell shit in Europe or Asia!

     The price of gas has much less to do with the demise of Detroit than does the price of extracting 30 years of Marlboro sludge from the lungs of UAW workers. Once all the tiny hybrids (that cost just as much as SUVs but with a lower margin) hit the market, you'll see. In the meanwhile, enjoy my tax dollars.

[The Village Idiot]

I remember a Motor Compny in Atlas Shrugs became a "workers democracy". anyone remember what happened?

[thundley4]

I blame it on the foreign car makers sending their cars to the US. How dare they offer a superior quality product, at a lower price than what the US automakers could provide.  

During the late 70's and 80's they were trying to play catchup with the imports, and instead of finding just a few makes and models to focus on , they started putting out crap as fast as they could retool their plants. Overall quality suffered, lots of recalls , high prices, (union wages and benefits kept going up, no matter what), and people stopped buying the crap from Detroit.

Not all of the problems were caused by the unions, management played a huge roll.  They gave in to union demands too easily.

[5412]

I blame it on the foreign car makers sending their cars to the US. How dare they offer a superior quality product, at a lower price than what the US automakers could provide.  

During the late 70's and 80's they were trying to play catchup with the imports, and instead of finding just a few makes and models to focus on , they started putting out crap as fast as they could retool their plants. Overall quality suffered, lots of recalls , high prices, (union wages and benefits kept going up, no matter what), and people stopped buying the crap from Detroit.

Not all of the problems were caused by the unions, management played a huge roll.  They gave in to union demands too easily.

Hi,

While I agree with you, I am old enough to remember just how things were done.  When the big three controlled the market the wage scale for all three were pretty much identical.  Ford, the one remaining survivor, was the one who would hold out the most but basically the unions would only target one automaker when a contract came up for renewal.  They would then strike, and they did regularly, so while one basically sat, the other two gleefully picked up market share.  Once the strike was settled, the other two would then pretty much agree with the same terms. 

The power rested with the unions because the three automakers could not get together and lock out the union all at the same time.  It really caused problems for the one automaker that was targeted.  At the time the union had an unfair amount of power in my opinion.

As cruel as life is sometimes, what we all earn is generally based on a fundamental economic law...supply and demand.  If there were another 10,000 heart surgeons in this country, heart surgery would be cheaper.  When we became a world market, the laborer fell vulnerable to laborers in other countries who could do just as good a job for a whole lot less money.  Because of foreign competition, US automakers were forced by the unions to send as much work offshore as they could for survival.  Assembly line workers in Detroit have never come to grips with that.

You think it is bad in the auto industry.  Just hope like mad that terrorists do not destroy our power grid.  I understand now that there are no more US manufacturers of electric transformers.

regards,
5412