E-mail from an auto industry worker
Didn’t have time to post an alert beforehand, but I did a brief segment on Fox& Friends this morning on the mega-auto bailout. Reader Alan e-mailed about his experience in the industry:
Dear Michelle,
Thank you for taking the time to read my comments. I worked in the Automotive Industry for most of my career as a supplier to GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda of America, Toyota, Nissan, and BMW.
You were exactly right with your comments on Fox & Friends this morning. The UAW has handcuffed GM, Ford, and Chrysler with unreasonable and unrealistic burdens. Their balance sheets will never improve until they shed this weight.
There is another aspect affecting their business and is not being talked about in the media very much.
Having dealt directly with all current domestic automobile manufacturers, there is a distinct difference in how the Big 3 do business with their suppliers as compared to Honda, Toyota, and other foreign automotive assemblers. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan in particular want to make sure they are entering a partnership that insures financial success to all parties.
GM’s business practices generally lead to no profit, tremendous oversight by their internal supplier quality watchdogs, who demand unrealistic expectations, and extremely slow payment in the reimbursement of tooling costs to start new programs. It is not unusual to see reimbursement for tooling costs years after the program has started.
Their business practices are not a tax payer problem, but a terrible management problem. It was a noble idea for the Federal Government to lend them $25 billion to help. It is now known 4 X’s that amount will not cure the root cause of the problem., but only buy them 4 X’s the amount of time.
When a cancer is identified inside a person, it is immediately removed if possible. The Big 3 has a cancer that needs to be removed. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why they cannot compete profitability. They have parity on supply costs, materials, and energy with Honda and Toyota. So why can’t they compete? It is clearly the cost of labor.
A few years ago I was in Warren Assembly, in (Warren, County, (sic) [Macomb County,] Michigan. Two plants side by side make the Ford Focus and the Ford Expedition. As you drive from [Dearborn] to Warren County, every abandoned shopping center parking lot was full of vehicles. A friend of mine was then the HR Manager for Ford Truck and I asked him why they were still building.
His answer astounded me. UAW Labor is paid company wages whether they work or not. America has to wake up concerning this. Until we can get organizations like the UAW to understand the only missing ingredient to creating a level playing field is getting the cost of labor to a realistic level, domestic car makers will never be successful.
See what others have said
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Trackbacks
- On The Automakers: Dump The Unions And Then We Can Talk Bailouts | Right Voices
- UAW Malignancy On US Car Manufacturers « Mcnorman’s Weblog
- BizzyBlog » AP’s Auto Bailout Coverage Ignores Excessive Labor Costs, UAW’s Concessions Refusal
- How Unions Killed The American Auto Industry « The Chronicles Of A Rogue Jew
- More on unions - Helps me understand why Ford won’t fix my F150 « Ford F150 News
- MishMashZone » Detroit Auto Industry Bailout
- Bear Creek Ledger » Sympton of US Auto Company’s Cancer
- There's My Two Cents
- It’s Time To Bail On The BailOuts | 101 Dead Armadillos
- Garden State Patriot | Let The Auto Industry Crash
- Michelle Malkin’s Inbox: Email from Auto Industry Worker « Jane Q. Republican
- When Unions Attack | BipolarNation.com
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Just STOP voting for the same incumbents to public office! Sheesh, how hard can that be? Stop supporting union run business wherever you can. Money talks—b.s. walks. Even the dumbest manager can figure out that if he doesn’t shape up and fly right, his job is out the window. If GM won’t change their stupid business models no one will buy their cars and they will go under. That’s the way a free enterprise system works. I would love to see some guy invent the car that runs on water and start up his little shop (just like Ford did over a 100 years ago)selling them one by one as they are built. The managers who run these corporations today never invented anything, never sacrificed anything, and therefore have no respect for what it takes to build a company. It would serve GM, etc, right. NO UNIONS AND NO BAILOUTS TO ANYONE!!
You know, there is something else out there that could help…let me send out a dispatch…
Hey, Big Oil,
How about sending a few coins towards the auto industry? While you have had a symbiotic relationship for years, they are really needing some of those record profits that you earned selling gas to those less-than-fuel-efficient SUVs and trucks.
No? Hey, just a suggestion that might help prevent karmic retribution later.
Not bad!
Kudos to you.
Rim shot, please!
The average UAW line worker at Ford, GM and Chrysler makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $85/hour in total salary and benefits.
Until this ridiculous and lavish compensation package is reigned in, I’ll have no sympathy whatsoever for these workers once they’ve run their companies into the ground and become unemployed.
The UAW has killed the goose laying the golden eggs.
Just like “iamsaved” has said. My uncles have all retired from GM, and when they were laid off in the 70’s and 80’s, they were still being paid 90% of their pay. As a kid, I always wondered how they could afford to travel and buy bass boats and such if they weren’t ‘working’.
Scruum.
ECS
I, like many car geeks, would hate to lose Ford, Chrysler and Chevy. I think their fate was sealed long ago as has been well pointed out above. But bankruptcy may not mean their end, but a reorganization into something more efficient. And, yes, with some severe changes in their union contracts, long overdue. I have to ask, as many have, what were the Big 3 doing with all the profits made over the last decades? What research and reinvestment was made? Savings? All these high UAW benefits the autoworkers were making? What did they do with them? Savings/investment? Or spent on more/bigger/higher/roomier, etc., i. e. they bought more boats, jet skis, campers, motorhomes, bigger homes, etc., instead of saving. Personal/Corporate responsibility is the question. More money is not the answer. BTW, all the high wages don’t mean excrement if your company can’t sell their product or service. They’re out of business and you are out of a job.
Right there, in that one sentence, you’ve summarized the actions and legacy of socialism each time it is attempted.
Socialists believe that a robust economy and a stable society are just “there”; and that we stupid, ignorant clods are just waiting for “Their Most Highly Enlighteds” to come to our rescue and solve all problems by tinkering and fiddling with this, tossing out that, and attaching the other thing…;
…When the truth is, that the socialists either don’t have a damn clue as to what the hell they’re doing;
Or, they know very well that they are parasitically worming their way into, and undermining and weakening our economy and society, so that they will stumble and collapse; in order to be replaced by the socialists’ twisted, perverted dream (read: nightmarish) alternative.
Well, they failed to keep wages low, so the negotiations must not have gone well. Seriously, the UAW strong-armed the auto companies by insisting on raises, permanent benefits increases, and “job banks” backed up by the threat, and often followed up, of strikes. The UAW now won’t lift a finger to help the automakers by accepting benefits cuts, thus strangling their golden goose. So, yeah, it is the UAW’s fault, at least partially.
If you could comprehend what you read, you will note that the “auto industry worker” also didn’t let the auto company executives and their business plans off the hook, so whining about him doesn’t give you any credibility with anyone with half a brain or more.
Are you stoned, stupid, or getting paid to flack this site?
ECS
Seems to me if the end of the secret ballot for unionization passes, and everyone becomes unionized, it could fall under one banner~ The Great American Union of Idleness.
Nobody will make anything at a competitive price in this country or perform any service that could not be done for less elsewhere!
That is pretty much the plan of the liberals as I see it.
I guess the other part of the plan is to fine companies that try to locate out of country.
When we are not selling anything or buying anything, as no one will have money, I suppose we will have achieved “fairness” and the added benefit will be that no illegal alien in their right mind would consider coming here.
BTW, I’ve worked in a union environment for 35 years and the abuses are legendary. Some good is offset by horrendous stupidity. Yes, the companies will take advantage when and where they can. Yes, sometimes, a union can and is needed to intervene. But, for the most part, abuses are too enticing to avoid and the road downhill comes inevitably.
Good post.
Yep.
However, I would not use the term “liberals”.
I would call them what they are: socialists.
As Churchill (I believe) said:
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
Other People’s Money illustrates the beauty of capitalism and why it must not be f’d with.
Classic scene provided by Youtube
Speech before shareholders
IMHO – any company wanting a bail-out should address their stockholders and ask them if they feel comfortable kicking in a few more bucks to save it. If not, either bankruptsy with a sound reorganization plan in place, or complete liquidation is in order. Let one of these dinosaurs go under and I guarantee you the atmosphere will change. In my book, many of the poorest decisions were made by their own stockholders by electing their boards of directors. They should suffer the consequences.
I work for a Union supermarket (as a non-union employee who pays the “collective barging” fees). As I have always said, honest employees who do their job DO NOT need a union. The only employees who need the unions are the lazy ones who like to steal.
We had one employee who was caught stealing TWICE, on tape and fired. Because of the Union they got re-hired then refused to do their job. They got written up almost weekly for 6 months before management finally was able to get rind of them, by giving them the minimum hours required and forcing the out.
The only time I see anyone for the union it is to tell me why I
shouldmust support something to make it fair. They will had me a sticker and pamphlet. If you try to ask critical questions they will not answer them and walk away.I have a friend who works at a NON UNION supermarket. Employees who do not follow rules can be written up and eventually fired. Management will reward employees who go above and beyond whit pay increasing to keep the employees who help sales/profit and get rind of the ones who don’t.
Their company is not cutting hours, ours is.
Looks very interesting. I just requested it from my local library.
I don’t understand the need for unions. Why would I want someone else to negotiate the terms between myself and my employer? I’m certain of two things: (1) I’m quite capable of doing it myself and (2) I have more a vested interest in myself, my family, and my relationship with my employer than any union ever could. Unions once had a purpose, but they can go away now. (If only our politicians applied such principles to government bureaus.)
You do realize that when stats are mentioned about unions, those stats EXCLUDE unions connected to the government. Those stats are for the private sector. Government connected union membership outnumber all of the private sector membership combined.
And you wonder why the government
runsoperates like it does.for all those union supporters, come and visit western Pennsylvania. Miles and miles and miles of closed plants. Too much violence, too many strikes. All of our hundreds of manufactures packed up and left decades ago. And now they have the garrote around the neck of the Big 3. I hope they get what they deserve. Bankruptcy.
Much as I love to whomp on the UAW, as only someone who has had first hand experience with them, the unions are only a part of the problem.
A good bit of the blame rests squarely on top management, at GM at least, which is where I have personal experience. Believe me, the pig-headed stubborn ignorance, the ‘not invented here’, the ‘my way or the highway’, every single defect of any bureaucratized and over-large organization is to be found in the ranks of middle and upper management at GM, and there’s considerable reason to believe that the same is true at Ford, et al.
No, it is these over-paid ‘leaders’ who have led their companies to disaster. A pox on them all!
And, by the way, the non-Big 3 auto OEM’s are frankly as capable of doing just as badly. I’m currently doing some work with a components supplier to two of the Big 3 and a few of the foreign-owned OEM’s. Several of the foreign ones, while having the advantage of no unions, are at *least* as arrogant, ignorant, slow to pay, and utterly unable to accept responsibility for their own massive errors.
There may BE no good answer to some of these issues, in part because the automobile is the most complex bit of mass-produced machinery in the world. Too complex. Please tell my why we NEED heated seats and DVD players in our cars. Just adding cost and complexity, meaning more things to go wrong.
Unions lead to poor management. They create it. They foster it. They fight you every step of the way. On everything. If you try to fight them for management rights, they target you. I have worked in manufacturing management for 16 years, and I’ve seen it firsthand. You need to “play along” as they run your business into the ground. If you have “employee relations” problems, it is looked down upon by upper management, who don’t want any problems. Heaven forbid you have a strike at your facility. It could be career-ending.
Management chooses not to fight. Average performance is good enough at a Union facility. Push for more, and you will regret it. It takes a toll. This is why it is necessary for the big three to go under. Their management is ruined, contaminated, and retarded.
When the CEO of GM was on 60 minutes recently; he poked fun at the start-up electric car manufacturers. He was so arrogant and smug. Hard to believe he could sit there and lecture on how the car business is “harder than it looks”, while his company lost $50 billion last year. Now, that level of incompetence is really special! Let’s through some more money at arrogant morons and see what happens.
Deja Vu all over again for me; I’m from Pittsburgh. Back in the 70’s and 80’s, the Steel Worker Unions did to Pittsburgh what the UAW is doing to Detroit today.
I recall that as far back as the early 70’s, a slag worker was earning over $40K/yr! Yeah, it was hot; yeah, it was dirty; yeah, it was a little dangerous but, YEAH… ANYBODY WITH A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA COULD DO THAT JOB WITH ONE HOUR OF TRAINING! (what’s the CPI from 1970?)
Thanks to unions, (plus some absurd EPA mandates too), we saw the END of Pittsburgh as the ’steel city’ and the beginning of a major shift to imported steel from Canada and Japan and China and … etc. A STRATEGIC LOSS TO OUR COUNTRY. (Coal will be the next…)
So, I remember what unions brought to Pittsburgh. In the 80’s and early 90’s – STREET AFTER STREET of houses in ghost mill towns all with FOR SALE SIGNS in front – many begging for ANY offer.
A seat heater or DVD player that stops working doesn’t stop the car from it’s primary function. Neither of those are ‘automotive technology’ anyway.
Can anybody explain to me HOW the government forcing the industry to convert from US to metric helped the US auto makers to be competitive? (And I STILL dare anyone to show me how ISO is better than ANSI or that the metric screw series make any sense..)
Aside, guess what drive sizes are available for socket wrenches in Europe? (hint, the same as here!) Guess what the international standard unit is for altitude in aviation, (hint, not the one used by the side that lost WW2…)
Part of the problem is the incestuous relationship between complicit politicians and Detroit and the UAW.
These unions have the one thing politicians cover most. Votes.
So politicians would sentence their mothers to a life of hard labor in order to get the support of these unions. They think.. “It may be wrong, but it’s for the greater good.. that being.. I get elected”
There was a time when unions served a valuable purpose. That time has passed.
They need to rework their labor costs. Employees will get hit, but so are many other sectors. Who’s crying for the 10,000 IT people in NYC already out of a job, or about to lose it? It sucks, but we can’t go one like this.
The solution can not be to dump good money.. OUR MONEY.. into a machine that will just burn it and end up in the same place in no time at all.
That’s unacceptable. You all had better tell your Reps so… and fast.
I remember in the early 80’s a joke about getting a job pushing a broom at a GM parts plant near Trenton. The pay rate was supposedly something like $20 to $25 per hour….. yes… for pushing a broom.
The writing has been on the wall for some time now.
Back when the head of GM said something like “What is good for GM is good for America”, Democrats criticized it. Ironic that now they are the ones making that same statement.