Kudos to Obama for now
This is not the futureUAW boss Ron Gettelfinger is telling members to ratify a new round of concessions with Ford. Otherwise, according to Gettelfinger, Ford will not survive.
Holy cow. During the first round of Congressional testimony on this issue, the UAW seemed pretty resistant to any further concessions. I guess the UAW has finally seen the light. Certainly the problems associated with the Big 3 are not purely the fault of the UAW, but the union did play a significant role.
Kudos to the Obama administration and Congress for playing some hard ball with Detroit. With the significant tie between labor and Democrats, an earlier cave in was expected, at least by this blogger. Of course, such a cave in probably would have guaranteed the eventual collapse of Detroit's automakers.
Still, now comes the hard part. How do the Big 3 deal with the fact that 10 million sales per year might be America's new run rate? Can the Big 3 compete at producing small, fuel efficient vehicles at a profit? Will any US automaker produce 100,000 hybrid cars per year within the next 5 years?
Labels: Big 3, Congress, fuel economy
posted by Dahcredyns at
5:59 AM
5 Comments:
Actually, I have no such kudos for Obama. Considering that the latest polls continue to show that most Americans are against an automaker bailout, what choice did he have?
Had Obama just quickly caved in, he would have proven himself and idiot and an incompetent President.
And, in terms of payback? How about the executive order signed on day 3 that requires companies doing work on "stimulus plan" funding be union shops.
michael-
wasn't that provision eliminated? i could be wrong, but I thought that was removed from the final bill.
i don't agree with that kind of program.
I'm just noting that i thought that Gettelfinger was acting a tough guy during the first round of congressional testimony because he knew he had Democrats in his pocket - which i think he did believe.
i believed it.
i don't think democrats are going to be as tough on this issue as they should, but i thought they would have caved in already, so i'm impressed thus far.
still, this was the easy part. i'm not so sure i'll be so supportive once plans are put into place. but, hey, i'd love a few more surprises.
I disagree about the UAW comment. They played virtually no role in the Big 3's demise.
1. Leadership short-sightedness during the days of cheap gas. Forcing SUV's down our throats ad infinitum.
2. Big oil company greed and avarice, blocking all attempts at alternate fuels in auto company offerings.
3. Finally, unmitigated greed and avarice evidenced in the financial community, resulting in the collapse of nearly every economy in the world. Bad timing for the auto companies as it came on the heels of sky high gasoline prices, which stunted the sale of high margin gas guzzlers.
It costs about 8K to bring a car to market and 12K for a truck or SUV. Now you know why they push those vehicles as the profit margin is huge.
25 hours or so of labor to build these cars even at 100 dollars an hour only accounts for 2500 bucks. Sorry, the UAW simply is not the reason for the current conundrum.
I don't agree.
The Big 3 needed the profit margins of those big gas-guzzling SUVs to help cover its labor costs.
Likewise, look how inefficient US auto manufacturing has been for decades compared to Japanese auto manufacturing. After decades of inferiority, we're only finally catching up.
Change isn't something that most unions advance. Unions, typically, are inflexible by nature. Unfortunately, we live in a very dynamic world and Unions prefer stasis.
To say unions didn't have a role in the complacency of the US auto industry seems a bit unbelievable. I'd blame management more, but Unions were complicit.
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