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TR6oldtimer
Darth Vader
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GM, in partnership with the Chinese, builds Buicks in Shanghai. Which model below is the Chinese version? Which one would you buy if you wanted a Buick?
The red car is the US version. At least in my opinion, the Chinese got the better deal.
The red car is the US version. At least in my opinion, the Chinese got the better deal.
GregW
Yoda
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Speaking generally, I don't understand why a particular car is pigeon holed. Why are economy cars ugly? Wouldn't using an aerodynamic sports car body help with fuel efficiency? Why not make fuel consciousness sexy? Honda S2000 vs Insight. Saturn Sky vs Chevy Volt.tony barnhill said:
Silverghost
Yoda
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What is the consensus on the upcoming annual auto shows? Nissan has pulled out, at least here in Chicago. Main advertising push for 2009? Antiquated dinosaur? Good way for auto makers to show they are looking for ways to handle current crisis? Overblown, improper use of resources demonstrating old school, same as always mind set? Your thoughts?
tony barnhill
Great Pumpkin - R.I.P
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Well said, Nial...& there's not much in your response that I disagree with (though the last time I sat down with Jerri's cousins who retired from the UAW about the same time that I retired from the Army, they didn't have those expenses about which you spoke)...I was always happy when I got my dividend checks and, though I didn't agree with lots of things management & the UAW did, my stock value kept going up...so, I share some of the blame.
However, as much as the Big Three have to change lots of things inside their companies ( they have lots of things they need to do - actually the burden of the change; but not all of it!), I fully believe the UAW must make more concessions. Lemme show you something:
Ron Gettelfinger made $163,000 based on information found in the 2007 LM-2 reports for the UAW; his clerk typist made $58,000; his security guard made $87,000 and union organizers' average salary was $130,000.
Now, how are UAW members' dues spent? Marketable securities: $360.4 million, Black Lake Golf Course: $6.4 million, outstanding loans - including <span style="font-weight: bold">mortages</span>: in excess of $27 million (yes, the UAW is in the mortgage lending & real estate buisness!).
But, do those huge salaries & benefits & the money made from home & commercial real estate filter down to the members? One UAW contract between Electrolux/Local 442 (they make Frigidaire washers & dryers) has members making $11.80 per hour!
First of all, why is the UAW in the middle of washer & dryer manufacture, volleyball & tennis nets, fishing nets & twine, Powerbilt golf clubs, Radio Flyer wagons, Biolab pool chemicals, Trane central air conditioning systems (I own one - great product)? I mean, they're the United Auto Workers union! Or, have they made unions a big business & forgotten why they're there?
Also, how do they justify the disparity between the union elitists at their headquarters and many members? Think about it, a clerk typist at union headquarters makes $58,000 annually versus the roughly $22,656 (52 weeks of work, no overtime @ $11.80 per hour) for a Local 442 factory worker!
Why doesn't the UAW divest themselves of the golf course & get out of the mortgage & real estate business (wonder if the UAW will get a bailout on that portion of their business?)? And marketable securities? If they're not used solely for increasing pension funds but are, instead, just a side business for the UAW, they should also be divested.
I'm not anti-union...I remember back in the 50's & 60's how terribly employees in the southern textile industry were treated. My step-father's father worked in a "cotton mill" - non-union - & his working conditions were attrocious...I'd take his lunch to the mill on some days...noisy, smelly, stuff floating around in the air, hot, man, so hot that when I got to him to give him his lunch his clothes were dripping sweat...if a person got their hand or arm caught in a machine & was not able to work, there wasn't much help during that time...& I could go on...there was an industry that sorely needed a union to protect the employees...oh, & those mill employees' salary, pennies!
I guess I'm coming down as anti-UAW, I'm not...I'm saying that the Big Three management has alot of work ahead of them (actually the majority of the burden) but so does the UAW...both have to tighten their belts & work together, not in the usual antagonistic environment of the past.
Oh, has everyone forgotten that back in 1982 Ford & GM asked to be bailed out? The president back then said "NO" & suggested they work to become competitive....2008-1982 = 26 years! What have they done? When I decide on a longterm investment in a business, I look at their history. What's their history?
When we bail them out in 2009, they'll be back again in about 30 years as was British Leyland & as could have been Chrysler except for the leadership of Lee Iacoca. Heck, even back in 1979 when Iacoca went to Congress he didn't ask for a bailout - he asked for loan guarantees. And the Congress didn't lend Chrysler a penny! They only guaranteed the loans Iacoca later made (and paid off with interest!) with various lending institutions.
And the Fall of 1982 was the worst recession we've been in since the Great Depression! And we got through it without bailing out the Big Three!
I don't see any Iacoca's in either the Big Three or the UAW!
However, as much as the Big Three have to change lots of things inside their companies ( they have lots of things they need to do - actually the burden of the change; but not all of it!), I fully believe the UAW must make more concessions. Lemme show you something:
Ron Gettelfinger made $163,000 based on information found in the 2007 LM-2 reports for the UAW; his clerk typist made $58,000; his security guard made $87,000 and union organizers' average salary was $130,000.
Now, how are UAW members' dues spent? Marketable securities: $360.4 million, Black Lake Golf Course: $6.4 million, outstanding loans - including <span style="font-weight: bold">mortages</span>: in excess of $27 million (yes, the UAW is in the mortgage lending & real estate buisness!).
But, do those huge salaries & benefits & the money made from home & commercial real estate filter down to the members? One UAW contract between Electrolux/Local 442 (they make Frigidaire washers & dryers) has members making $11.80 per hour!
First of all, why is the UAW in the middle of washer & dryer manufacture, volleyball & tennis nets, fishing nets & twine, Powerbilt golf clubs, Radio Flyer wagons, Biolab pool chemicals, Trane central air conditioning systems (I own one - great product)? I mean, they're the United Auto Workers union! Or, have they made unions a big business & forgotten why they're there?
Also, how do they justify the disparity between the union elitists at their headquarters and many members? Think about it, a clerk typist at union headquarters makes $58,000 annually versus the roughly $22,656 (52 weeks of work, no overtime @ $11.80 per hour) for a Local 442 factory worker!
Why doesn't the UAW divest themselves of the golf course & get out of the mortgage & real estate business (wonder if the UAW will get a bailout on that portion of their business?)? And marketable securities? If they're not used solely for increasing pension funds but are, instead, just a side business for the UAW, they should also be divested.
I'm not anti-union...I remember back in the 50's & 60's how terribly employees in the southern textile industry were treated. My step-father's father worked in a "cotton mill" - non-union - & his working conditions were attrocious...I'd take his lunch to the mill on some days...noisy, smelly, stuff floating around in the air, hot, man, so hot that when I got to him to give him his lunch his clothes were dripping sweat...if a person got their hand or arm caught in a machine & was not able to work, there wasn't much help during that time...& I could go on...there was an industry that sorely needed a union to protect the employees...oh, & those mill employees' salary, pennies!
I guess I'm coming down as anti-UAW, I'm not...I'm saying that the Big Three management has alot of work ahead of them (actually the majority of the burden) but so does the UAW...both have to tighten their belts & work together, not in the usual antagonistic environment of the past.
Oh, has everyone forgotten that back in 1982 Ford & GM asked to be bailed out? The president back then said "NO" & suggested they work to become competitive....2008-1982 = 26 years! What have they done? When I decide on a longterm investment in a business, I look at their history. What's their history?
When we bail them out in 2009, they'll be back again in about 30 years as was British Leyland & as could have been Chrysler except for the leadership of Lee Iacoca. Heck, even back in 1979 when Iacoca went to Congress he didn't ask for a bailout - he asked for loan guarantees. And the Congress didn't lend Chrysler a penny! They only guaranteed the loans Iacoca later made (and paid off with interest!) with various lending institutions.
And the Fall of 1982 was the worst recession we've been in since the Great Depression! And we got through it without bailing out the Big Three!
I don't see any Iacoca's in either the Big Three or the UAW!
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Good points there.....
Back around the same time, Harley Davidson applied for tariff protection to give them some breathing space to get new products, with a new engine, developed properly and brought to the marketplace, which was granted. The new products were so successful, so competitive, that HD requested that the tariffs be removed ahead ot the agreed time.
They worked with the unions to improve their motorcycles, quality and production methods.
Look at where Harley are today.
Why can't the big three use this example as a business model, and go from there?
Back around the same time, Harley Davidson applied for tariff protection to give them some breathing space to get new products, with a new engine, developed properly and brought to the marketplace, which was granted. The new products were so successful, so competitive, that HD requested that the tariffs be removed ahead ot the agreed time.
They worked with the unions to improve their motorcycles, quality and production methods.
Look at where Harley are today.
Why can't the big three use this example as a business model, and go from there?
Silverghost
Yoda
Offline
There's a guy here in Chicago that very likely has that Motorama car if it still exists. Joe Bortz or something like that. He has managed to rescue a fair amount of those show cars.
tony barnhill
Great Pumpkin - R.I.P
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And Harley in unionized! United Steelworkers of America......but, when I took a tour of their Kansas City plant, everything was humming smoothly..they have a program where the quality control guys pull a finished bike off the production line at random, take it for a test drive, & then disassemble it to find the problems..the bike is then returned to the production line with a list of issues the crew that built it has to look at in their overall procedures....there's a different bike in the employee break area every day with groups of employees discussing what they could do better.Steve said:
Doesn't seem to be any animosity between management and the union that can't be worked out easily because both respect the other! I've toured lots of auto manufacturing planta (to include the Mercedes one here in AL) but that Harley plant impressed me more than any of them.
DNK
Great Pumpkin
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Gee, I'm sorry to bring this old thread up again. I really didn't follow it when it was current.
I kind of follow Clark Howard's blog and he posted an interesting note.
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">"This is not, however, a diatribe about the American worker. It's really general management that has failed. Case in point: There was a GM plant in Fremont, California, that was just about the worst plant since the days of the Yugo. Toyota took the plant over; hired back the exact same workers who were employed there under GM; and it went from worst to first within 2 years. Again, there's nothing wrong with the American worker; it's management that's at fault."</span>
Was wondering if anyone is familiar with this and is this a true statement
I kind of follow Clark Howard's blog and he posted an interesting note.
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">"This is not, however, a diatribe about the American worker. It's really general management that has failed. Case in point: There was a GM plant in Fremont, California, that was just about the worst plant since the days of the Yugo. Toyota took the plant over; hired back the exact same workers who were employed there under GM; and it went from worst to first within 2 years. Again, there's nothing wrong with the American worker; it's management that's at fault."</span>
Was wondering if anyone is familiar with this and is this a true statement
Online
DNK said:
C'mon, Don - it's on the internet... in a blog, fer cryin' out loud! Of <span style="font-weight: bold"> course </span> it's true!
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Ya know ... I read "something" on a blog yesterday. Couldn't believe what I was reading. So I clicked a link in the blog, and it took me to another blog.
That second blog actually just quoted ANOTHER blog.
I went to that new blog, and it was just taken word for word from ANOTHER blog.
Went to that blog ... and ... wait for it ...
It referred to the first blog I read at the beginning!
Wheeeeeee!
By the way - I read this on the internet:
"Some horrible things are going to happen!"
Is it true?
T.
That second blog actually just quoted ANOTHER blog.
I went to that new blog, and it was just taken word for word from ANOTHER blog.
Went to that blog ... and ... wait for it ...
It referred to the first blog I read at the beginning!
Wheeeeeee!
By the way - I read this on the internet:
"Some horrible things are going to happen!"
Is it true?
T.
OP
RonMacPherson
Guest
Guest
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The Fremont plant was actually one where Toyota and Chevrolet "joined" forces. Remember the "Toyolet"? That's where they came from.
Quality control at the Fremont plant was only slightly better than most other GM plants(based on an old warranty cost per car report that I read a couple of decades ago). Production output was signifigantly better, but that was because Toyota changed the production line equipment and assembling. They went more to the "Deming"(sp). suggestions on production...
Quality control at the Fremont plant was only slightly better than most other GM plants(based on an old warranty cost per car report that I read a couple of decades ago). Production output was signifigantly better, but that was because Toyota changed the production line equipment and assembling. They went more to the "Deming"(sp). suggestions on production...
tony barnhill
Great Pumpkin - R.I.P
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Well, it was nice to hear that the UAW is thinking about pitching in to help the Big Three with the bailout problem...lemme see, they said <span style="font-style: italic">"that the union is willing to change its contract and will delay billions of dollars in payments to a union-run health care trust in an effort to help the struggling Detroit Three automakers.
Gettelfinger also said the union will modify the jobs bank, in which laid-off workers are paid up to 95 percent of their salaries while not working, but he did not give specifics."</span>
WOW {sarcastically said}!!! That's some real help, Ron old boy! JEEZ!
Gettelfinger also said the union will modify the jobs bank, in which laid-off workers are paid up to 95 percent of their salaries while not working, but he did not give specifics."</span>
WOW {sarcastically said}!!! That's some real help, Ron old boy! JEEZ!
GregW
Yoda
Offline
Mickey, you mean this isn't true? :smirk:Mickey Richaud said:C'mon, Don - it's on the internet... in a blog, fer cryin' out loud! Of <span style="font-weight: bold"> course </span> it's true!
Online
"...and there is that Leviathan, which you have made for the sport of it..." :smirk: