Fixing GM...
- Thread starter Larry Gude
- Start date
Pete
Repete
True, while many of the jobs are considered unskilled they are complicated enough that GM cannot bust the union and call in scabs.Larry Gude said:
The unions in Maine at Bath Iron Works were the same. They would strike to get GD to the table in a weak position then hammer out a deal that was outrageous. But GD had little choice. What was worse was union advocay for employee misconduct. I had a pal who ran an investigation business. He made his money almost exclusively doing fraud investigations for GD busting workmans comp grafters. Henrietta would take a ladder back into a vacant space on the ship and lay the ladder down, then lay on the floor next to it until someone discovered her. She would go to the doctor with mysterious back pain and go on workmans comp. She would show up in a back brace, barely able to move for her 1 hour a day, then my buddy would video tape her dancing at a bar on ladies night a couple towns over. Grounds for immediate dismissal? Oh no, the union would defend the grafters right to the end and in most cases they would keep their job. Disgusting.
I had another friend who worked for Kraft Foods in Memphis and a manager for cooking oil production in the packaging department. His nightly stories of labor woe's would make you cringe. People falling asleep, not showing up for days, not following instructions, not wearing safety equipment, balk talking and they were untouchable. The process for firing was so complex and exhausting it took forever.
I see the value of collective bargaining, and I can admit to seeing benefit in unions but the question is when does collective bargaining stop being bargaining and turn into extortion? Labor when boiled down is just another raw material that is refined (trained) and used to produce profit. When the cost of that raw material goes so high that the company is not profitable it dies and everyone suffers.
GM as a corporate entity is not blameless for sure. They have not been responsive to the market place like they should have. They are the #1 automaker not because their organic product was in high demand, they simply purchased other auto makers to gain market share under the GM umbrella. They need to be more nimble, responsive to the market.
When it comes to auto makers I am reminded by an interview I read one time many years ago in a magazine with the president of Mitsubishi or some other large Japanese company. It was back in the day when Lee Iaccoca was being hoisted as a hero. The Japanese automaker saw him as a hero but not for the same reasons. He said that with the deal that Iaccoca got from the government and unions he could have priced Chrysler products so that there would have been a Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth in every American driveway and the company would have still made money. He could have driven Japanese market share nearly to zero and reset American prominence but he didn't. He went with the greed and priced them to eek out every penny he could get thus allowing import makers to stay.
Aside from labor and product issues there is another problem the big 3 have. A huge cost is warranty repairs. Dealerships stick it to their corporate partners every day. They are capped at the labor charges they can charge their parent company but many gouge them in many other ways. They do not diagnose they throw parts and labor at it and ring the cash register at GM, Ford and Chrysler's expense.
In all I drive a GMC, before that a Chevy, and before that a Ford. I just choose to buy American. I have not had a lemon from an American maker that I recall. I suspect as long as they have a product that fits my needs/wants I will continue to do so.
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Ponytail
New Member
A guy I worked with up in Philly still has a Vega with a 350 in it. It's even a "classic" metallic brown color. 
Say what you want about the union. I agree that the U A W is sucking the life out of the industry. The IAW is doing the same thing to Aircraft Manufacturing.
But I can't place the entire blame on UAW for GM's demise. GM only makes two vehicles that I would consider buying. That is their F/S trucks and the Corvette. I don't like the cheap designs of the vehicles across the rest of their lineups. Maybe it's just me, but every time I see a GM vehicle, it just looks cheesy. There's no style or class anymore. Ford and DC are dominating the US market with the classy LOOKING midsize and family cars and in the US, it is ALL about LOOKS. Younger families don't want mini-vans that look like mini-vans anymore. They have to LOOK like they have class, which is what fueled the boom in the Monster SUV market a few years ago. Ford and DC were the ONLY ones that developed new vehicles for that. GM tried marketing their 30 year old Suburban and Yukon platforms, which basically have looked the same for 15 years. They missed the boat completely on that, and lost BIG $$$. They do a crappy job when they do "market analysis" and designing for what the market will sustain and what pleases the consumer.
The new Monte Carlo should have been their new flagship but what the hell kind of excitement can you possibly stir with a large mid-size car, and powering it with a 6 cylinder???
Granted it has an 8 cyl avail after it was out for a a year or two already, but the design is the same. It's old news. Pontiac is the same. They've got a hell of a product in their G6 with supercharged V6's, but the car is boring to look at. There is something to be said for having a "sleeper", but this country is and has been for a long. long time now, all about "the bling".
Ford is driving the US market for economical cars. But DC is still outselling GM. Why? Look at their line-up. Their cars stir excitement at just the site of them. I would NEVER own one due to my past experiences, but dammit, their cars and trucks just look nice. MUCH nicer than anything that GM has to offer. They are classy and solid LOOKING vehicles for the most part.
Just my $.02.
PT
Say what you want about the union. I agree that the U A W is sucking the life out of the industry. The IAW is doing the same thing to Aircraft Manufacturing.
But I can't place the entire blame on UAW for GM's demise. GM only makes two vehicles that I would consider buying. That is their F/S trucks and the Corvette. I don't like the cheap designs of the vehicles across the rest of their lineups. Maybe it's just me, but every time I see a GM vehicle, it just looks cheesy. There's no style or class anymore. Ford and DC are dominating the US market with the classy LOOKING midsize and family cars and in the US, it is ALL about LOOKS. Younger families don't want mini-vans that look like mini-vans anymore. They have to LOOK like they have class, which is what fueled the boom in the Monster SUV market a few years ago. Ford and DC were the ONLY ones that developed new vehicles for that. GM tried marketing their 30 year old Suburban and Yukon platforms, which basically have looked the same for 15 years. They missed the boat completely on that, and lost BIG $$$. They do a crappy job when they do "market analysis" and designing for what the market will sustain and what pleases the consumer.
The new Monte Carlo should have been their new flagship but what the hell kind of excitement can you possibly stir with a large mid-size car, and powering it with a 6 cylinder???
Granted it has an 8 cyl avail after it was out for a a year or two already, but the design is the same. It's old news. Pontiac is the same. They've got a hell of a product in their G6 with supercharged V6's, but the car is boring to look at. There is something to be said for having a "sleeper", but this country is and has been for a long. long time now, all about "the bling".Ford is driving the US market for economical cars. But DC is still outselling GM. Why? Look at their line-up. Their cars stir excitement at just the site of them. I would NEVER own one due to my past experiences, but dammit, their cars and trucks just look nice. MUCH nicer than anything that GM has to offer. They are classy and solid LOOKING vehicles for the most part.
Just my $.02.
PT
gumbo
FIGHT CLUB !
Lets say you have a 10 year old US Toyota plant under UAW.Larry Gude said:
Which I don't believe are that old.
Verses a 40 year old GM plant under UAW.
Let's say the average Toyota UAW worker has been there 5 years.
And the average GM UAW worker has been there 20 years.
Which group do you think would produce better quality work ?
The fresh still believe in quality, gun ho worker or the bla bla another day going through the motions worker.
The big difference is. When those UAW workers at Toyota ,start getting tired and old and start costing Toyota money.They will just simple shut them down.
Where the GM plant does stay loyal to there community.
Could this be why Toyota has a better product ?
Are there any guidelines to a plant shut down ?
And if there are.
Could it be Japanese manufactures don't have to follow the same American guidelines to a plant shut down ?
I also wonder if the Japanese manufactures have to follow the same American monopoly laws ?
For instance American auto manufactures can't just use one brand of tires on their new vehicles.
They must use all tire manufactures, because of these monopoly laws.
Have you ever seen Firestone's on a new Toyota? I don't know, but I don't think so.
Take two brand new Ford Exploders. You have Firestone's on one and Michelin's on the other.
If you drove both of the Exploders. You would swear up and down,
that the one with Michelin's was allot better built vehicle.
These monopoly laws are not just on Tires. They are on paint and other components too.
Could this also be a reason why you feel a Toyota is a better car.
Is a Toyota a better car ? No it is not.
The consistency of not getting a lemon or having to take it in to the service dept for something stupid ..Yes Toyota
So therefore the consumer gives better reports thus better retail value.
Those GM vehicles that happen to come out of the plant unscaved with flaws are often better than Toyota's
But if your playing the precentages. The answer is Toyota.
A consistently good build vehicle.
You can have a better product. But without consistency.
No one will believe it.
Tonio
Asperger's Poster Child
The support that the Japanese government gives their auto companies, isn't that the corporate equivalent of welfare? Iacocca and his counterparts at GM and Ford used to whine "No fair no fair!" about the "unfair advantage" that Toyota and Honda received.Larry Gude said:
I read the claim recently that GM and Ford should focus less on market share and more on traditional profitability, which is what Toyota and Honda have done. What do you think?
I don't know much about economics, but I seem to remember a change in the tax laws in the '80s that made it more advantageous for firms to accumulate debt by buying up other firms and less advantageous to run up debt through infrastructure improvements. Was that the case?
Pete
Repete
I disagree. First off a Toyota / GM joint venture was going on at a plant in Freemont California 20 years ago. Many Japanese plants are just as old or older than US plants.gumbo said:
As far as quality work is concerned it is not a function of UAW or not or worker longevity. It is all about quality control. The Japanese adopted a process improvement strategy that relies heavily on statistical analysis taught to them by a man named J. Edward Deming. He revolutionized manufacturing and the US companies ignored him so he went to Japan. That is why Japanese quality was so much better than US years ago. Since that time US manufacturers has closed the gap significantly.
The cost associated with a "senior work force" is this. If I have a guy who installs a windshield, everyday same windshield, over and over again. Year 1 I pay him X, and every subsequent year I give him some sort of raise. In 20 years he is making alot more putting in that same windshield than he did in year 1. Say at year 20 I hired a guy to work on the next line over putting in windshields and since he just started I pay him what I paid other dude (adjusted for inflation) in year 1. Now I have old dude making big money and next door I got a guy doing the same job making half as much. Same work but one guy is HUGELY more expensive salary wise.
Now figure that old dude gets 30 vacation/sick days because he has been there so long. New dude gets 15 and again costs me half as much.
This is what is dragging GM and a bunch of other companies down. They get guys in and they will not leave AND they get rather large wages for basically unskilled labor because the union requires wages to increase at a certain rate.
While none of these things sound like alot it is when you are talking about nearly half a million employees. If GM were able to replace the part of its workforce that had over 25 years with new people it could easily save 40% of its labor costs.
The one good thing about having a work force that is older than dirt is when you provide a qualified retirement plan you don't end up paying as much retirement benefits because they die faster. GM's problem is they have shorted their retirement funds for years.
Ponytail
New Member
What does that have to do with GM's sales being down another 15%?? Ford and DC are both down as well, but by only half as much, if that.
UAW, pay, retirement...all have nothing to do with sales. To pay the bills, you must be able to move your product. If you don't design a product that the consumer wants, you're not going to sell it.
UAW, pay, retirement...all have nothing to do with sales. To pay the bills, you must be able to move your product. If you don't design a product that the consumer wants, you're not going to sell it.
B
Bruzilla
Guest
This guy's just another clueless pinhead who thinks that tax breaks and dooming big oil are the solutions to all of our problems. The reason that Americans are having so many problems is simple: we're dedicated to working for money rather than having our money work for us. We're raised from day one to do good in school, find a good job, get a mortgage, new car, and keep up with the Jones, then die. Our ancestors knew to buy and invest in assets, not liabilities. They would start a business, grow it, and then other family members would take things over and keep things running. Most of our ancestors, up to and including many of our own parents, didn't work for Fortune 500 companies, they worked for themselves.
So, go ahead and eliminate the costs of oil, give the middle class a big tax break, etc. What will that do? Will Joe Citizen use that extra money to start his own business and grow it? Hell no... he'll spend that money on products made by a corporation, which will eventually downsize their workforce to improve their bottom line. Then he'll drive his shiny new and overpriced car that he's just financed for six or seven years to his job that he hates but that he's terrified of losing despite the fact that he's not making the money he wants and is likely to lose during the next downsizing anyway.
If you really want to improve the economy you need to breask the cycle of working for money that we have in this country now. Take a lesson from what the Koreans, Middle Easterners and Indians are doing and follow their lead... they're the only ones who've got it right.
So, go ahead and eliminate the costs of oil, give the middle class a big tax break, etc. What will that do? Will Joe Citizen use that extra money to start his own business and grow it? Hell no... he'll spend that money on products made by a corporation, which will eventually downsize their workforce to improve their bottom line. Then he'll drive his shiny new and overpriced car that he's just financed for six or seven years to his job that he hates but that he's terrified of losing despite the fact that he's not making the money he wants and is likely to lose during the next downsizing anyway.
If you really want to improve the economy you need to breask the cycle of working for money that we have in this country now. Take a lesson from what the Koreans, Middle Easterners and Indians are doing and follow their lead... they're the only ones who've got it right.
gumbo
FIGHT CLUB !
[
We both agree how the union is bleeding the American car manufacture.
However !
None of the Toyota plants here under UAW have been here in the states very long.
Mid 80's there was one Toy/GM it was called a Nova and it was made in Japan. Some of it was assembled in Fremont CA.
Then it was used in the short lived GEO line.
No pun ..but are you confused with Izusu...
We both agree how the union is bleeding the American car manufacture.
However !
None of the Toyota plants here under UAW have been here in the states very long.
Mid 80's there was one Toy/GM it was called a Nova and it was made in Japan. Some of it was assembled in Fremont CA.
Then it was used in the short lived GEO line.
No pun ..but are you confused with Izusu...
Larry Gude
Strung Out
!!!
LOL!
Pete said:I grew up a real redneck and everyone I know bought an old Vega and put a 350 in it.
LOL!
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Gumbo...
I've been around US cars and trucks my whole life.
The only comparison between my Sequia and every American car I've ever owned or had the opportunity to spend some time driving is that the Seqouia, which I can't spell twice the same way, is clearly #1 and everything else is #2.
Better fit. Better finish. Smoother operation. Better ride. I'm on year three and every single thing still works just like new except a ball joint recall that got fixed on my last oil change; they just did it instead of me waiting for my recall notice. And a front wheel bearing went bad early.
No relays have failed like on my Escort year ago.
No mysterious fuel pump failure like my buddies Expedition.
No fuel pump dying like my old Suburban.
No power window or mirror problems like dads Tahoe and my Suburban.
No air condition mystery failure like my friends top of the line Denali.
No headlight fritz like the Jeep. No catching on fire in the middle of the BWI parkway like step moms Wagoneer.
No endless radiator problem like on her other Wagoneer.
No clocks stopping working. No cassette players giving up.
No power seat problems like on most of the above. No mystery wiper failure. No washer pump failures. No air blower noise.
No glove box that needs to be slammed shut. No tailgate window fritz.
No tranny problems that just can't seem to be fixed.
No cruise control wierdnesses.
No ABS problems.
So on and so on.
Maybe we got all the US lemons and the only good Jap Mobile?
I've been around US cars and trucks my whole life.
The only comparison between my Sequia and every American car I've ever owned or had the opportunity to spend some time driving is that the Seqouia, which I can't spell twice the same way, is clearly #1 and everything else is #2.
Better fit. Better finish. Smoother operation. Better ride. I'm on year three and every single thing still works just like new except a ball joint recall that got fixed on my last oil change; they just did it instead of me waiting for my recall notice. And a front wheel bearing went bad early.
No relays have failed like on my Escort year ago.
No mysterious fuel pump failure like my buddies Expedition.
No fuel pump dying like my old Suburban.
No power window or mirror problems like dads Tahoe and my Suburban.
No air condition mystery failure like my friends top of the line Denali.
No headlight fritz like the Jeep. No catching on fire in the middle of the BWI parkway like step moms Wagoneer.
No endless radiator problem like on her other Wagoneer.
No clocks stopping working. No cassette players giving up.
No power seat problems like on most of the above. No mystery wiper failure. No washer pump failures. No air blower noise.
No glove box that needs to be slammed shut. No tailgate window fritz.
No tranny problems that just can't seem to be fixed.
No cruise control wierdnesses.
No ABS problems.
So on and so on.
Maybe we got all the US lemons and the only good Jap Mobile?