Corporate shills want to blame unions for auto industry's demise
By David Neiwert Tuesday Nov 25, 2008 6:45am
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[H/t to Dave for the video.]
Fox's Neil Cavuto had a fellow named Rick Berman of the "Employee Freedom Action Committee" on his program yesterday blaming the auto workers' unions for the demise of the auto industry. Berman natters on at length about the legacy costs for American automakers (neglecting to mention that the legacy we're talking about here originates with a workforce that made these corporations the giants they are today) and trots out a thick union contract to complain about how onerous it is for these corporations to deal with unions.
Cavuto, of all people, tries to be "fair and balanced":
Cavuto: All right, but it's also managers who don't turn fast enough, or see the benefits of more fuel-efficient cars, or to be able to move as quickly as their Japanese or Korean counterparts.
Berman: Yeah, but you have to understand again that you've got -- in that big contract I've shown you, you've got the UAW with veto power over which cars are made in which plants for what period of time. Now you tell me of another business that has to deal with a union and the union makes those decisions and can veto whether or not you start producing a fuel-efficient car.
This is -- not to put too fine a point on it -- a load of bollocks. The decisions on developing corporate lines and following technological trends at the Big Three have never been influenced to any great extent by labor-related restrictions but instead have always been about maximizing profits under the vision of corporate management. See Who Killed the Electric Car? for a clear portrait of this.
Berman goes on to make clear he wants to see a "prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy" that would completely wipe out all existing union contracts and start everyone over at Square One. If you worked for GM for the last 20 years, well, tough luck.
What goes unmentioned in this interview -- and the ultimate target of Berman's campaign -- is that he's looking to attack not just autoworkers' unions but the entire labor movement. Bashing the UAW is just a way of laying the groundwork for a much broader attack on unions in general -- and in particular, on the Employee Free Choice Act.
Who is Rick Berman? He's a former legal eagle for the National Chamber of Commerce (the longtime nemesis of the labor movement) who has gone on to forge a lucrative career setting up all kinds of "nonprofit" organizations that rake in thousands of dollars from corporate interests, as NPR reported awhile back:
Berman's firm also runs the American Beverage Institute, which argues that drunk driving is over-hyped; the Center for Consumer Freedom, which argues that the obesity "epidemic" and mad cow disease, among other things, are over-hyped; and the Employment Policies Institute, which advocates against minimum wage increases. The Center for Consumer Freedom also runs the Web site Activistcash.com.
SourceWatch has more, noting that Berman steadfastly refuses to say who finances his organizations. There's also a discussion of Berman's current campaign:
In August 2008, the group's "political arm," the Employee Freedom Action Committee, ramped up its campaign agains the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). It launched a $30 million campaign, including radio, television, print and online ads and "a substantial grassroots organizing effort." The group's anti-EFCA ads were slated to run in Maine, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Colorado, Oregon and Minnesota. At the same time, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which is comprised of "virtually hundreds of businesses, chambers of commerce and trade associations," was also spending millions to defeat the bill. "The folks behind the ad campaign fear that if Sen. Barack Obama, an Employee Free Choice Act sponsor, is elected president and power shifts to the Democrats in the Senate, the bill will become law," according to a New Hampshire paper.
That's exactly right -- and it's exactly why people like Berman are out there doing everything they possibly can to destroy the unions before the EFCA ever passes.
Howie Klein has a great piece on what the EFCA is really all about, including an incredibly insightful excerpt from Barbara Erhenstein. And then he wraps up by explaining that the chances of its passage grow stronger every hour:
Good news though-- all the Democrats elected in the Senate are likely to be EFCA supporters, as are almost all the new Democratic House members-- we'll have to see about the 2 right-wingers from Alabama the DCCC wasted so many millions of dollars electing-- and, more importantly, one of the sponsors of the Senate bill is Barack H. Obama. The House already passed the bill 241 to 185 on March 1, 2007. On June 26 the Republicans managed to filibuster the bill to death, 48 Republicans joining in that effort. The only Republican joining the Democrats to end the filibuster was Arlen Specter (R-PA). Tim Johnson (D-SD), a co-sponsor, was in the hospital and couldn't vote. Several of the anti-working families Republicans who joined the filibuster were defeated-- or have retired and been replaced-- by Democrats: Wayne Allard (CO), Elizabeth Dole (NC), Pete Domenici (NM), Gordon Smith (OR), Ted Stevens (AK), John Sununu (NH) and John Warner (VA). If the vote were to take place today there is every indication that it would be 59- 40. That's one short of passage-- and that's why the recount in Minnesota and the re-run in Georgia are both so important.
No wonder clowns like Rick Berman are out there trying to bash unions with everything they've got. They can see that big tsunami bearing down on them -- and after 28 years of having it all their way, they want to believe they can outrun that tide.
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I've been hearing that repeatedlly for a week. Here in Dallas they're trying to place the DISD woes as the fault of the teacher's union, not budget fraud.
The board even decided to postpone elections and give themselves two more years.
.
In the “Spirit of Cooperation”…
… SCOOP: McCain and Obama Camps Coordinated on Building Staff Rosters for Next Government
.
I would hate for his last huge step to be the destruction of the AFL/CIO... or the UAW. but I could totally see his inner circle manifesting this. argh. this is why the GOP lost the election. they're not driven by conservatism, they're driven by neoconservatism.
think they're driven by greed - pure and simple. Greed for wealth and power.
I couldn't bring myself to watch/listen to the video above, can't tolerate listening to Cavuto and whoever that bald guy is tell more lies. But, they really represent what's wrong with our economy - too many people who contribute absolutey nothing to the betterment of society except Hot Air!
Where do they find these blowhard analysts that fill up the airwaves with blather and crap? They should all go out and find a real jib and do some real work! Oh, I forgot, they exported all of them....
parking lot, waiting all day for landscape work, constantly being passed over for hard-working Hispanics...
So, who is funding Berman's group? If they have a $30 million lobbying campaign isn't there some way to find the sponsors?
When the automakers come back next month with their plan, they should be asked if their companies contribute to Berman's group.
Then congress should tell them any bailout is contingent on not spending money on such propaganda campaigns.
As a 501(c)4, they're allowed to gather up all the money they like without revealing donors.
(I forget where) that the groups sponsor(s) is a closely guarded secret.
My money is on a cartel of obscenely wealthy CEOs and their ilk who should be in a federal high security prison - cooling their heels for wrecking the economy for their own personal profit.
Instead, they are working to undercut people who actually work for a living.
They have great hopes of reducing yet another segment of American workers to the status of paupers.
It has worked very well with the flight controllers and steelworkers - and best of all - nobody has busted them on it yet.
But that's okay, they're cree-yist-yins; not perfect, just forgiven.
I'm declaring war on Thanksgiving. It will make a nice little friend to my war on xmas.
I'm calling it Thinksgiving and the festivities include the trimming of the Secularch.
The value of Ford, Chrysler, and GM in today's stock market is considerably lower than the additional $25 billion that they want. Why not take a fraction of that money, purchase the companies, fire the current top management and bring in all new people to run the show? After they recover, then we sell the stock and end up making money on the whole deal.
...it makes too much sense !!
Far too logical Paul!
Why don't we all email and fax our Senators and our Congresscritter with this idea?
You're just chock full o' good ideas this mornin Paul!
You're very kind.
We've bailed out bank after bank, and given them hundreds of billions in tax dollars SPECIFICALLY so they can free up the credit crunch. Why don't the banks make the loans to the auto industry? Whats the point of bailing out banks to make loans if we still have to make loans to industries because banks won't give them loans?
NOTE: If the banks won't loan to the Big 3, not because they can't but because financially they don't think it's a good bet, then we shouldn't either. I mean if the companies are GOING to fail, why add 25bil to the tab?
Paul, Paul, Paul.
That's not the way the free market works - it's supposed to line the pockets of the uberrich, while claiming to "look out for the little guy."
Fair trade? Saving money? Being more efficient? What are you, un-American??
This is what happened with Citi. We gave them more in bailout than the company was worth. In other words, for what we gave them, we should be owning them. Once again, Repubs show not only are they bad at governance, but despite their pride on this very issue, they are bad at business.
doing any real work.
In other words, they are great thieves.
The whole "business" crap is just window dressing to make them look legit.
I simply do not know A SINGLE GOP militant, in the past couple of decades at least, who has created a successful and sustainable business from the ground up. I still get a kick out of some of my former GOP acquittance who can talk on an on about the whole concept of pulling oneself by the bootstraps, while ignoring that every single one of them had either a trust fund, or came from enough money as to have enough cash in hand to start they (useless mostly) business. And not a single one of them has a company that adds a clear value. Stuff, that normally you won't miss if they were gone, but some how they manage to latch on to normal transactions raising the price of the original transaction (esp. the real estate types).
Sell the companies to the Auto Worker's Union so that the union can show them how to run a company!
I like this idea! I was thinking the same thing a couple of days ago. Then instead of seeing GM, Ford and Chrysler do like the banks and spend all that money on corporate parties and sports sponserships we can see it going into rejuvinating the industry. I'm pretty sure that the taxpayers aren't invisioning their bailout of the auto industry to be used to build more NASCAR cars but you can bet the corporate heads are thinking that way!
Lets just fire all management in the auto industries and strip them of all their entitlements and stocks, stock options and retirement and Golden chutes. Then hire Japaneese CEO's who work cheaper,harder and know how to build cars. Than we can increase productivity and increase workers benefits.We would be able to sell these vehicles at half price.
Send them to that screaming academy for failed executives from the movie "Gung Ho."
and let's not forget all those corporate jets!
That's the problem with these CEO's - they will not let go of their entitlements for the good of the whole. Put the workers out in the street just so they don't lose their 3rd, 4th home.
Yep, that's a common refrain: fire the management. Folks, not all management is bad, just like not all unions are good. If you folks were the centrists that our new president is claimed to be, you'd know that.
For decades American automakers have, with some major exceptions, always been late to the party with cars that the world wants to buy. They have frequently suffered from poor quality, dubious styling, and poor fuel economy. I would suggest that this is mainly the fault of management.
They have always been burdened with higher labor costs than any auto assembly center in the world. This is mainly the union's fault.
But frankly, note that several foreign car manufacturers very successfully make cars in the US. How do they do that?
Well, there's better management. And there's much better cooperation between the corporation and the unions. Managers and workers make decisions in small teams. Significant investment is made in automation; and, get this, with the union's blessing.
Yep, it can be done in the US. But not like it's been done in Detroit.
About carmakers in Japan: they have struggled mightily in recent years. Their labor costs are skyrocketing. Numerous executives have been accused of improper behavior. All is not perfect over there either, and importing a bunch of Japanese executives is not the answer.
Cite and sources, thank you very much..
Sure, blame the unions; and not the layers and layers of management built up over the years and the incompetence of senior management and CEO's. Yeah right.
Inferior engineering is responsible for the American makers' current position, IMO. The Japanese have simply done a better job over the last forty years or so. They've earned their place at the top of the heap.
If these Chamber of Commerce types hate unions so much, I suggest they not call a firefighter or police officer next time they need one. Because, you know, they're socialist union members!
Lets say Berman is correct. If he is correct then he is basically admitting that the CEOs of those auto companies serve no real purpose other than to be a figure head. They do not build the vehicles produced nor would they have any say in what is produced by his own admission. In other words, the employees and unions run the company which would make those CEOs irrelevent.
Besides, maybe Berman should take a hint from the U.S. military about which type of vehicles are needed. Vetvoice posted an article saying the military is now turning towards electric vehicles to run strictly on bases for routine errands and the like. It seems the military is far ahead of GM and Ford in that respect. Link to post is below with a picture of the vehicle the military wants to use. Its a cute little car I have to say:
http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do;jsession...
So THAT'S why the Big 3 have gone downhill: the CEOs have absolutely no say, the workers have all the power.
Communists!!!!
Surprised they didn't haul the union bosses to congress to testify aboard their private jets.
I'd drive one of those the 3 miles back and forth to work. It's a little slower but well worth that in what it makes up for in low maintanace and operation cost.
Name and
Principal Position
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL (7)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
G. R. Wagoner, Jr. 2007 1,558,333 0 2,561,113 3,776,710 1,802,000 4,020,400 697,358 14,415,914
Chairman & CEO
2006 1,283,333 0 3,574,594 3,095,560 0 1,468,100 769,566 10,191,153
F. A. Henderson 2007 1,279,167 0 2,058,378 1,690,318 1,026,000 748,300 805,848 7,608,011
Vice Chairman and
Chief Financial Officer*
2006 1,162,500 0 1,991,885 860,671 0 754,200 423,582 5,192,838
R. A. Lutz 2007 1,279,167 0 1,444,307 2,628,044 1,026,000 0 516,506 6,894,024
Vice Chairman, Global
Product Development
2006 1,162,500 0 1,787,304 1,138,960 0 3,909,600 445,679 8,444,043
G. L. Cowger 2007 900,000 0 1,433,385 575,995 511,000 1,557,800 114,676 5,092,856
Group Vice President,
Manufacturing and Labor Relations
2006 858,335 0 921,592 386,945 0 673,400 61,048 2,901,320
T. G. Stephens 2007 825,000 0 1,476,524 534,044 468,000 1,528,100 112,499 4,944,167
Group Vice President, Global Powertrain and Global Quality*
*The above executive compensation data is an excerpt from the proxy statement filed for
General Motors Corp on 4/25/2008
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These senior managers make almost as much as a brand new bond trader on Wall street. Did they ever pick the wrong career.
At the heart of this anti-auto bailout is the destruction of the UAW.
Most of these people ignore the fact that he UAW brought good wages, health care, decent working conditions, vacations and many other benefits to the American workforce. These are benefits that most workers take for granted, but a lot of heads got busted back in the 30's and 40's to attain these benefits.
I'm also a little tired of hearing how bad American cars are. Just today the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety listed Ford as the company with the most safety certified models (16) as compared to Honda (13). GM and Toyota had 8. The same thing goes for fuel efficiency and reliability.
The management at the Big 3 has been abominable over the years, Roger Smith and Jacques Nasser come to mind, but to blame the UAW for the woes of the auto industry is just flat out propaganda.
The UAW didn't design the Edsel, the Vega or the Hummer among others.
Suzanne Vega gave a Hummer to Edsel?
Good points. The problem is that for quite some time years back, American cars weren't worth shit. When people saw that Japanese cars were much better, they switched to them, and people still aren't ready to trust American cars again, since Japanese (and Korean, etc.) cars remain efficient and dependable.
Ding ding! Todays winner.
These fascists see their chance of finishing off the labor movement is disappearing before it was fully realized, and their greedy little heads can't stand it!
Oh look, more crap from Eddie Munster. Wasn't he recently blaming the economic crisis on "minorities" recently?
... you've got the UAW with veto power over which cars are made in which plants for what period of time.
This sounds suspiciously like an argument to counter the union seeking training for its members as new technologies come in the door. That is, instead of training existing employees to prepare and install the new computerized widget, we fire those lazy union bums and bring in new propeller-heads at lower pay.
Thus, if the union says, "You have to give the union first shot at learning and qualifying for these new positions," Berman sees it as the UAW 'vetoing production of new models'.
Is related to getting a perfectly good thread going about discussing alternative fuels busted up by energy company shills and their negative BS, IMO
Considering that the Big 3 are defendant on a Dem controlled congress for a bailout and that Dem controlled congress is waiting on a plan from the Big 3 to show how they are going to change their practices, I'm pretty sure 'union bashing' isn't one of the things in the plan the Dems would want to see.
In the meantime, keep inundating the general public with commercials for pick up trucks that can haul insane tonnage. Oh and also a good idea, in response to what the customers want, keep lowering prices on SUV's and keep raising prices on fuel efficient smaller cars. That'll help you compete with the foreign car manufacturers.
I think perchance you mean dependent, but I twern't against them being defendents.
for some reason i have no edit on that post.
All these problems would not have been problems if McCain/Palin had won. The Auto Industry will have been allowed slave labor there by not having a budget problem. Unions would have been destroyed and people would be standing on line for food. The US Treasury will have continued to be robbed until some country brought the US out. Right now Citi Group has the Saudi's a large share holder and their buying up more shares so in the end they will controlling shares in the largest US bank. China is doing the same as is other Foreign countries. The Media wont report it but check the Foreign Business records and things are looking really good. Henry Ford would know how to handle this crisis and not bring down his employees to do it. It's sad to see a product that was developed by America now taken over by a Foreign country because we didn't follow the blueprint anymore and they did.
Blaming the unions for the demise of Big Auto is like blaming OPEC for $147 a barrel.
Don't get the wrong idea here but the auto workers have to suck it up a bit as well. First though, nobody in management should make more money than President Obama.
I'm all for workers making a good living but some of the things they get are pretty absurd. I'm pro worker but these guys cannot compete with Toyota and Honda when their labor costs are so high. Its just simple economics.
Again, don't get me wrong here. I, in no way respect the asshole on the video but reality is reality.
The union workers have "sucked it up" over the past few years. They have seen plant after plant close and in the last contract they lost any real job security.
What did Ford, GM and Chrysler do after they got new contracts with the UAW? They announced collective lay-offs of over 100,000 workers. Nice, eh?
If that was true, foreign auto makers would not be able to build cars in the USA competitively. But they are able to do so.
Also the American worker's productivity has increased almost linearly in the past 3 decades, while wages have remained stagnant. So basically, we work more for less. It will be a cold day in hell before I start arbitrary blaming the current fiasco on the American worker.
BTW, foreign auto makers have no problem capturing good workers from the big-3 by offering them better salaries and benefit packages. So again, labor costs ain't the issue.
Now, here is a funny stat for you guys: The CEO of GM makes over 1 order of magnitude more money than Toyota's CEO.
And here is another fun info tidbit. Those labor costs for American auto makers, also include executive salaries. The American makes, the differential between executive and worker pay is over 2 orders of magnitude. Every where else in the world? 1 order of magnitude!.
So not only American workers get to work more for less pay (compared to 2+ decades ago). But the high executive salaries drive average labor cost up. And yet the workers get to be blamed for driving labor costs up. Ain't that a bitch?
I am not religious, but I do hope there is a special ring in hell for members of the American business elite. The same idiots who could not manage their way out of a wet paper bag. And now, they get to blame people who just want a decent salary and a chance to retire with dignity, for their own managerial incompetence. Only an American company would manage to lose money in the land of "the car."
You'll note that in a previous response I also noted that foreign carmakers can successfully make cars in the US. But I do not at all equate the way they do it.
I would be very interested in hearing your sources for the data in this post of yours. It is not that I favor excessive salaries for executives, or substandard pay for workers. What I cannot accept is reading supposed facts with no ability to check the references myself.
Woah, funny how I failed to see you provide any refereces to your post.
But if you must:
Salary differentials between American and Japanese auto makers:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-10-0...
Also the overal labor cost of a domestic car is about 10%, so the 90% left over is the managements fault:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20134718/
Now, I suppose you will extend the same courtesy and cite your own sources. Right?
Cheers...
(crickets)
That's the reality they want you to accept! It's time they started dealing with some worker reality.
If these assholes spent billions of dollars on creating jobs and paying people a decent wage, instead of spending it on propaganda so they can screw everybody else, this country would be in much better shape.
These dickheads will spend $30-40 million on an add campaign without batting an eye, or pay worthless parasites like Rush, O'Rally, and Beck mega-millions. But the thought of supporting their local school system with tax dollars drives them nuts.
Think of how many people could be helped with that kind of money? Worthless sociopath's!
these guys are getting more irrelevant with each passing day, and they will be swirling in the commode once Team Obama gets into full momentum with executing it's plans. Down they go!
To toss out union agreements, and destroy the UAW.
Everything else is distraction.
Berman is just another clueless anti labor dupe of big business. Not surprisingly, he conveniently forgets about people like Bob "global warming is bullshit" Lutz, Rick "small cars equal small profit" Wagoner, and the weakling rubber stamp boards of the Big 3 who were the real keys in enabling their demise.
Nobody forced the Big 3 to trade off wage hikes over the years for enhanced benefits, which in reality is a way to defer the real cost of your business to the future. The future is here and now people like Berman just want working people to take the hit and let off management scot free so their executives can continue to receive their outrageous compensation and shareholders won't take a hit on their EPS. Moreover, to listen to people like him, you would think that the collective bargaining agreements were forced on the Big 3 against their will. What utter bullshit. This is a two way street pal, and management is responsible too.
Blaming the UAW is just a convenient excuse of the Big 3's leadership to avoid accountability for their actions. They intentionally ignored consumer demand for fuel efficient cars in favor of the addictive crack of short term profit objecives via gas hogs like high profit margin trucks and SUV's. New and innovative products were set aside or shredded in favor of maintaining the status quo and short term shareholder return, eventually the market changed against their business model in favor of people like Honda and Toyota who already had innovative products that could immediately meet consumer demand. The response of the Big 3? Make hybrid SUV's and call them the "green vehicles of the year." What a joke.
The real failure here is one of leadership---they knew what to do but never had the vision to step up preferring instead to maintain the status quo. Collectively, they survived through a hundred years of recessions, depressions, wars and changing paradigms---but they cannot save themselves from myopic fools who know what to do but refuse to act affirmatively because of their addiction to money.
All the chamber of commerce shills ignore the "collective" in CBAs. As long as corporations reward executives for short term performance, management is ok with these agreements. The executives were long gone before the piper had to be paid. That is the problem with executive compensation in the U.S. today. Can you imagine if Neil Cavuto had purchased an auto, and had negotiated for lifetime tuneups and oil changes and the dealership came back 3 years later and said: "Oops, sorry, we can't give you those gratis anymore. You'll have to pay for them going forward." Cavuto would blow a gasket.
Are these two right wing corporate shills for Universal Health Care since they're touting that other countries (with single payer system health care) don't have to worry about such costs so it makes their manufacturers more efficient.
Of course not. Since these same shills would cry afoul from the other side of their mouths that such a system is "anti-choice" and "inefficient".
Gotta love how Corp Shills are all free trade laissez faire principles until you are talking about the actual rights of people/workers. Then you gotta have repress and smother. So free material and strangle people. The new motto of the RIGHT!
ALL have union labor. What seems to be the problem, Detroit?
... for the most part have twice (or more) technical staff, and more than less than half of managerial/marketing positions (percentage wise) than their American counterparts.
It is time we start making the American business class, you know the same "geniuses" that gave us this wonderful world of bullshit financial derivatives, to task.
Because the American business class has certainly no problem blaming us, common folk, for their fuckups.
If you really think about it, George Bush is the pinnacle of the American business class: Incompetent, lazy, and yet with a sense of unmitigated entitlement.
Enough...
Yup! Voltaire's Bastards
Again, do you have real facts to back up those claims of yours?
When are you backing up yours, sonny?
for those goddamn total POS 'cars.'
"it's bad. Much more than this 29 page one. See, it's all the unions fault!!!"
That pretty much sums up what he said. NEWSFLASH, THE AUTO COMPANIES ARE NOT GOING BANKRUPT BECAUSE THEIR EMPLOYEES WANTED HEALTHCARE AND A MIDDLE CLASS WAGE!!!!!!!!!!
I'm not sure where it origanated but I had this in my e-mail a few days ago. Seems fitting to share here.
A MODERN PARABLE....
A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents, and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners, and free pens for the rower There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.
Sadly, The End.
Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages. Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: Toyota makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads.
IF THIS WEREN'T TRUE, IT MIGHT BE FUNNY
When and where did this rowing event take place? When did Ford move all of it's manufacturing out of the US? It is sad that so much nonsense about what is ailing the auto industry is being perpetuated in this thread. I just hope the people who are working to try and save the auto industry don't buy into it.
Are you stupid???? No such rowing event took place!!! What the hell do you think the word parable means??? DAMN!! Buy a frigging dictionary for chists sake! Let me explain for you.... a parable is a story, either real or made-up, used to illustrate a point. The point here is that Ford management SUCKS and that IS a true story!
And if you would really honestly like to see where Ford has sent jobs and factories out of the US TRY to so a google search for ford outsourcing jobs overseas. I can remember when there was a huge public outcry years ago when Ford shut down some US plants and opened one in Mexico. It was like in this thing called the NEWS and all. Try reading some sometime.
Instead it's just stupid and ill-informed.
Ford is closing up to 14 factories in the US - but is planning to build a new factory south of the border in Mexico, according to a document leaked to the Michigan press this week.
The factory will build B-sector vehicles - Fiesta-sized - for the US and other markets and a deal is said to have been done with the Mexican government already. This news has prompted an angry reaction in the US, as up to 30,000 Ford workers face redundancy - and particularly in Michigan, once the centre of car manufacturing in the US but with production declining.
June 2006
http://www.channel4.com/4car/news/news-story....
Ford has a pretty long history of using Mexican factories to beat American labor and US taxes. But what can you expect from a company that hoped Hitler would win WWII?
aren't entitled to any jobs are they. What's really a shame is that those low margin vehicles can't be profitably produced elsewhere in North America.
...the Electric Car.
If you STILL haven't seen it, you can watch the full movie online (with Spanish subtitles). Find the link in my latest blog entry on 45+ MPG cars (did you know we made a 72mpg hybrid in 2000?)
blog.bi30.org
with that movie is that it ignores pretty much all of the dreadful deficiencies that the electrical car represents from an engineering, environmental and safety perspective. The fact remains that if money could have been made off these vehicles the roads would be full of them.
that people can hear all of the cons from the automakers themselves, who are always glad of excuses it seems.
I think that the point of the documentary is that the technology exists, as did an actual (imperfect) product that people loved to drive.
And the technology is developing at a brisk pace and will improve the E-car in a relatively short order.
See the film, judge for yourselves.
It opened my eyes.
People not only waited for these cars (which were only leased, none ever sold), they did not want to give them up.
This was initial technology - which was improving daily. GM bought the patent and then quashed the battery which would have gotten past some of the concerns.
Had they started with a rudimentary vehicle (the EV) and then built upon it, it would be GM, not Toyota, which celebrated its selling 1,000,000 vehicles last year. Not to mention all of the downstream employment of parts manufacturers and everything else that goes into building cars.
They took the lead - and dropped it. Then the foreign car makers saw the writing on the wall, picked up that ball and ran with it...all the way to the finish line.
I lived in Chicago when this car came out and never heard of it. And I am a car freak! There were no promos in Chicago. Nothing.
This would have made a great city car, but GM simply let it go.
about the short commute aspect of the vehicle. That's about all they are good for right now and they are still incredibly expensive in real terms of cost per mile. Which patent did GM buy and quash? The only recent development I've heard of late is the improvements in litium ion and that happened this year.
A man created a (lithium, I think) battery which was smaller and lighter weight than what had been used in the EV. He is in the film. His patent was bought by GM for what he thought would be used in the EV. GM bought it and then sold it, and it wound up going nowhere. And the man couldn't offer his new technology to someone who would use it as he sold the patent to GM.
This man was also, if I recall correctly, one of the people whose company had helped with other aspects of the EV.
If you haven't watched the film, it is worth the time to do so. I happened to see it when I was working with a solar company out in Cali on Earth Day. They showed it as a company event during lunch. It is a really fascinating film. They don't go into blame...as there was enough to go around. But they do point out the many who were involved in killing the EV. I almost blew off watching it as it was a two hour lunch and I thought I would just go blow a couple of hours doing something else. I am glad I didn't.
much of what is in that film is an outright lie. GM made the EV with old lead batteries, it was expensive and they could not sell the car. It was a mistake to crush the car, but they still have the technology and some of it is being used in the VOLT. The Volt will be the first and only electric car with unlimited mileage range, it will revolutionize the automobile and how it is produced. This technology will be used throughout GM in many of its cars.
You have to start somewhere. Remember the betamax? How much did a new betamax sell for? A grand or more?
There were wait lists for people to get EV's.
You're full of shit.
that bought the new battery patent.
the lithium ion battery is very common in all sorts of electronic devices and it is the principle hope for the future of the electric car. It is light, charges relatively fast and best of all doesn't use expensive and toxic heavy metals. Other than occasionally exploding they may well be the answer we're looking for. Recent developments with Toshiba and Panasonic indicate that they may well have overcome that problem as well. Still, even with this technology EV's will never be much more than light duty short commute city vehicles
for the zero emission standards.
At that time, Honda, Toyota, and GM were all offering EVs to meet the zero emission percentages that CA was mandating. They only offereded these vehicles as leases. And for the most part, the waiting lines were several moths to even years long. I remember me and friend were waiting already over 6 months to get the RAV-4 EV.
All the auto representatives testifying in the commission were stating, with a straight face mind you, that there was very low demand for EVs.
The sad part is that people do want EVs. Once I drove people in mine (when I was leasing) most people were sold on the concept: enough range for city commuting, ridiculously cheap operation, and more comfortable ride.
The problem is not that EVs are hard to manufacture, they are not. They are actually orders of magnitude simpler than combustion engine cars. The main problem is that they are not as "profitable" to the auto industry. They are simpler to manufacture, ergo cheaper. They do not require as many complex moving pieces, ergo they require less servicing and simpler maintenance. Plus the fact that they don't require gas.
So really the EV has 3 strikes against it:
1. Allows smaller firms to compete with larger makes due to reduced production complexity.
2. Reduces the need for an auxiliary industry (no oil changes, simpler transmission, etc).
3. It bypasses the oil industry completely.
None of these strikes have to do with passenger considerations, private ownership considerations, or technical difficulty considerations.
This is, EVs are ideal for the consumer, not for the current auto producer. Which sort of throws all that bullshit about capitalism favouring market-driven approaches.
And please, stop regurgitating the lies fed by the auto industry.
They aren't zero emission vehicles. Unless their charging source is zero emission they can actually cause more pollution because of the inefficiencies of transporting power and loss through charging. It's those damn laws of thermodynamics again. Other problems, of course, ignored in the discussion is the total lack of infrastructure to support EV's which automakers don't produce. Let's be charitable and say you can charge one of these beasts in four hours (quite optimistic) The lines at the filling station are likely to get a little long don't you think. No only an individual home based charger can possibly work. This is never factored into the cost of operation by the existing manufacturers. Then there are the safety factors and cost factors. The only way to make pure electrics even marginally useful and safe is to make them out of expensive composite materials otherwise the low energy storage capacity of all known battery systems severely limits their range. Forget about things like HVAC and headlights and any other electrical device if you want to actually get anywhere. EV's aren't there yet. Right now hybrid is the way to go and wiill be for some time.
the E-car is an indispensable intelligence at this time.
It illustrates how the automaker has the tech and the product - but destroyed it for being "unprofitable" at multiple levels ie gas, autoparts and maintenence.
These thugs should be imprisoned.
is that trade groups, lobbying groups, industry groups, chambers of commerce, orgs like that, are themselves unions. They're organized management and ownership. As long as they're organized, workers also have a right to be.