Let GM, Ford and Chrysler Die
As I wrote last August [GM Bankruptcy would be a good thing], "Nothing would please me more than to see General Motors go under. And then Ford and then Chrysler. Hopefully this would decimate the United Auto Workers Union which membership currently stands at under 465,000 freeloaders."
After years of fleecing their employers and American consumers, United Auto Workers are now looking to Washington to help come up with money to continue their exorbitant and ridiculous pay structures.
One would think that the Union Leadership, faced with the imminent demise of the Detroit Auto industry, would finally be in a mood to make whatever concessions necessary to entice the government to help in a bailout; a bailout, by the way, to correct the very problems caused by the Unions in the first place. But one would be wrong:
Bloomberg, 15 Nov 2008, Speaker Pelosi Says Automakers Need to Restructure
The union leader also said the UAW would resist further givebacks by members. The union agreed in 2007 contracts with the automakers to cut wages and end fixed pensions for new hires. Starting in 2010, GM, Ford and Chrysler are scheduled to shed retiree health-care obligations for U.S. factory workers to a union-managed trust.
But what's the point of helping with money if Detroit automakers cannot make cars as cheaply as car makers not under the Union thumb. If the Big Three are to stay in business the Unions have to do the following:
- Stop No Work. That is, discontinue the practice of forcing automakers to pay workers who do not work:
Detroit News, 17 Oct 2005, Jobs bank programs -- 12,000 paid not to work
Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.
"We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat."
Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.
- Stop No Shows. That is, discontinue the practice of forcing automakers to pay workers who do not show up for work:
Detroit News, 11 May 2005, Delphi asks ill workers for health files
Hourly employees at Delphi Corp. who refuse to sign waivers releasing their medical records could lose vacation days or pay as part of a new, stricter policy adopted in April to combat absenteeism.
The Troy-based auto parts maker's crackdown on no-shows, which has roiled workers and local union officials, comes as Detroit's struggling automakers and auto parts suppliers redouble efforts to lower operating costs.
Absenteeism among hourly workers in the automotive industry runs about 10 percent annually, about three times higher than in other industries, and costs companies millions of dollars a year in lost productivity, according to a study published last year by the Automotive Supplier Action Committee.
- Stop worrying about union members and start worrying about the viability of the industry as a whole. It is time that the Unions understood that what's good for General Motors is good for workers and for America.
Related articles:
And please spare me the argument that Detroit's woes are due to cheap cars from Japan and Asia:
Planck's Constant, 15 Jun 2006, UAW take GM, Delphi buyouts - US Needs to Dump entire Union
GM’s toughest competition these days is not from Japan, but from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina and the other states where foreign-owned auto companies have established production facilities.
And why are they tough competition? Because most foreign-owned auto plants in the United States are non-unionized. NON-UNIONIZED. Say that three times trippingly on the tongue.
I have previously written that it's time to let the Big Three go bankrupt and repudiate all contracts with union workers.
Planck's Constant, 22 Jan 2006, Plant Closings, Job Cuts Loom at Ford
If Ford can wait until all its Union workers are dead, it might have a chance at surviving as a car manufacturer. It needs to build a completely new automated plant with no workers. That's what Unions have achieved - they have bled American Industry so badly that we practically have no industry left and if we do produce anything it has to be completely, entirely, 100% without workers at all.
By the way, Ford makes money everywhere else in the world, but it reported that it lost over $1.4 billion in its North American operations in the first nine months of 2005. The company knows how to make cars and make money but not with the Union workers.
