Going Out Of Business, Will Work For Food

[LDB]

Certainly the few million dollars the CEO shouldn't get in a bonus would help rather than hurt but it's the hundred thousand workers getting paid 8 hours wages for only 4 hours work that does more damage. The workers get 'beat up on' because the unions have squeezed until they have choked the golden goose. I'm sorry but nobody should be paid for hours they aren't working and nobody should be paid $42 an hour to sit on a stool working a stopwatch. That's ridiculous on both counts and is the bigger reason for the problems although I agree the management are also a contributing factor but not the major portion.

Leo
truck 4958

Support the entire Constitution, not just the parts you like.

 

[Robert Finney]

I grew up in the Upper Ohio Valley, my Dad was a bag-man for Frank Fitzsimmons and Jackie Presser, the UIW guys used to laugh at the bar about how they almost got caught sleeping or 'cause they had to actually get up out of their recliner (I am not making this up; they had La-Z-Boys scattered around the mill) and the UMW guys would wildcat because they didn't like the soap the company provided. Damn near all the jobs are gone in this valley that could still be here because a group of short sighted morons insisted that pushing a broom was worth 22 dollars an hour just 'cause you did it in a mill. There were men there that had 20 weeks vaction. Paid, mind you.

The attitude became "The mill exists to provide jobs." What the hell did they think would happen?

The town I grew up in lost more than half it's populatiion in a span of less than ten years because everybody left to find work elsewhere when the mills cut back.

There's a definite need for a means of arbitration between Labor and Management without everybody being summarily fired, so I'm in favor of local unions and State recognition of such, but I'm not a fan of closed shops and I'm absolutely opposed to Unions at the National, International, and Multinational levels.


As far as expedited freight goes, though, any company that has based it's existence solely on auto work may suffer somewhat, some may go down, but the future of freight movement lies in the expedited corner and in the larger bulk. You're going to see larger trailers that move only along the Interstate from either manufacturer to distribution center to LTL center and you're going to see an increase in the use of the smaller unit truck for local (less than 500 miles) freight movement.
You won't see these two things occur by tomorrow, but if you think I'm full of it, just ask yourself how many 40' trailers do you see now? For that matter, how many 48's? Hasn't anybody commented on the increase of 4, 6, and 10 wheelers on the highway today as opposed to just 5 years ago? They're everywhere, seems like. I'm not talking about Joe's Market with his two F-150's doing their local deliveries, either. Those guys have been around since the first truck. I'm talking about Expediters in general.
This is a boomin' business, and although there will be ups and downs, the general trend of the need and therefore demand for the expedited carrier will be one of increase.
Neither the economy nor the expedited business rests solely on GM, which at times seemed to be the undertone to some of these posts, albeit unmentioned.

finney

 

[dukesadog]

Until someone invents that "transporter" type device from Star-Trek for all your get it there in 2 seconds freight needs.

dukesadog

 

[The Gibster]

I think Mr Finney has hit it on the head. A few months ago, OK, maybe last year, I wrote about a book by a Jewish economist Paul Pilzer, entitled "GOD WANTS YOU TO BE RICH".

He catalogs 'planned obscelescence' - 8 tracks to cassettes to CDs, carbs to fuel injection, etc.. His underlying theory is that there are methods of production present today that we couldn't even imagine 10, 15 years ago. And today we can't begin to imagine new inventions that will come around in the near future. But it always happens.

He referred to the movie "THE GRADUATE", where the next 'BIG' thing of the future was considered to be plastics. Obviously he was right.

Now Pilzer says the next 'BIG' thing is hub warehousing. Things warehoused closer to the end consumer, being brought out by, a just-in-time delivery system.

Like Robert said, bigger, dedicated route trucks and rails bring products to hub warehouses. Smaller, just-in-time, proven and capable carriers bringing it as the customer deems necessary.

Sound familiar?

And if you don't think the supply chain is changing, look at the nationally known overnight company trying to break into the US Mail system, or the Michigan expedite company partnering with retailers for 'just-in-time' consumer deliveries".

If expediting is going so well, and will get even better, very better - why not take the model and smear it across to other applications and be in front of the profit curve?

Makes sense to me.

The Gibster

.

 

[Loose_Cannon47]

Gibster:

"And if you don't think the supply chain is changing, look at the nationally known overnight company trying to break into the US Mail system, or the Michigan expedite company partnering with retailers for 'just-in-time' consumer deliveries".

You may not be aware that a "nationally known overnight company" is already hauling some of your mail (Priority), but probably not from your local Post Office.

Loose

 

[dragonrider]

Have to add this,when Dana got into money trouble[supposedly] they closed all plants they didn't own,gee came to find out that 90% were union plants. Now most plants are non -union.Then they shipped alot to overseas plants that they accired thru mergers[the one that created the cash shortage hummm]Now they seem to be doing ok and are not commited to any one company.

 

[greg334]

I have to add something here, like Broompilot I grew up here in the Detroit area, but unfortunately I still live here. I grew up a mile away from GM tech center and most of my friend Fathers were either engineers or accountants at the big three (which we have two left). I have a few friends at GM that are in management positions and hear all about GM’s ideas and strategies.

The 25,000 jobs they are really talking about are mostly going to be the white collar jobs that GM had to hire to fill the gaps that were caused by the forced layoffs and retirements in the 80’s and early 90’s. GM almost went bye-bye because they gutted their key engineering groups. There will be some of the blue collar jobs lost but nothing like the white collar jobs going away again. Most of the slack will be taken up by outsourcing more Indians (from India not native Americans) from Canada and could bring Delphi back into the GM family to bring in a number of engineers needed to sustain the work load.

One of the contributing factors involved here is the fact that GM can’t make a car that is good enough that the consumer will buy nor has actually anything that they want to buy. The fact that it takes them sooooo long to get the car through the committees and into a prototype version that they miss their window for marketing the car, let alone tooled up for production. Look at D-C and Ford; they have a quick turn around time from concept to product, this is because they changed their entire managing structure and philosophy. The antiquated Sloan management system that GM is clinging to is far too outdated to allow the effectiveness and flexibility for a volatile market and will cause them more problems (like a buy out) unless they change their business model now.

There is a propaganda campaign going on by GM, which started with this GM employee discount crap (they should just lower the price of all their cars across the board, it would make a great PR move) and their statements of too high healthcare cost that are causing them to lose money. They (the management) is trying to hedge the company against possible damage when they demand that the UAW and the workers start paying 100% for their healthcare and want the public to think that this is the only way they will survive. Right now GM is so large and has the cash reserves that they can spin off a new company that would insure their workers and reduce the healthcare cost form the alledged $1500 to more like $250 a car without too many problems.

Well I am affected by all of these layoffs here in the area. I am/was in IT and because Ford and GM have been laying off IT workers first and outsourcing the work, I can’t find a job, so I am going into expediting.

The Gibster – You’re right about getting rid of the union, but there is no way that they can get rid of the UAW or Teamsters under chapter 11 to reduce the cost of the car. Remember they have board members representing the UAW and they have a voice. Their profit margin is more than enough to sustain them, but as with other industries, they feel that they are not making any money and need to increase their profit margin to 30%.

Theoldprof – Yep you’re right, a worker is told what to do and has little say about it. But the problem is that the company (including Ford, D-C) blame the worker for the problems and the public believes this crap. Just look at the Blue Oval fiasco with the Ford Mustang and how Ford was forced to admit the situation existed.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[davekc]

There is a propaganda campaign going on by GM, which started with this GM employee discount crap (they should just lower the price of all their cars across the board, it would make a great PR move) and their statements of too high healthcare cost that are causing them to lose money.

I thought the same thing when I seen their latest ad campaign.
It almost appears they have been overcharging us until now.

Davekc

 

[slowhand]

$42.00/hr. WOW. Tons of money. Let's figure out what Shaq,Kobe, Barry Bonds, A-Rod, D.Jeeter etc,etc make PER HOUR to play a GAME!!!! I read on line that Jeremy Roanick ( Hockey player) over the life of his contract makes approximately $650,000/month. THAT'S RIGHT, $650,000 dollars per month. He deserves it. Right???

 

[Drluvv]

I've been thinking long and hard about GM's problems. Back in the day before the 1980's GM put out big gas guzzling cars and trucks which were all pretty much reliable, running strong and still in one piece long after the vehicle was paid off. There was no need for warranty on a Cadillac Coupe deVille with a 427 big block motor anc all the "New" electronic gadgets because they were made out of quality parts made right here in the USA.

When the UAW moved in and started requiring more money, better health care, paid vacation, "employee discounts" on GM cars and trucks, company paid beauty salon visits, free breakfast, lunch and dinner, a free turkey for every holiday, gas discounts, stock options, and more for the workes. GM had to look to cut costs to cover all the crap demanded from them. They started cutting production costs by using cheaper plastic and metal parts that were also lighter and less durable. All of this had a negative effect especially when they turned all but a few of their cars into front wheel drive jokes. They were still loosing money so they started laying off the blue collar workers and got robots to do the welding and painting instead. When that wasn't enough they moved some of their plants to mexico. Still the UAW was threatening to have the employees strike if their demands weren't met so GM caved in agian and gave them what they wanted. Remember the "no primer" paint job of the late 80's and early 90's? That was a cost saving method too. All of these cost cutting changes worked out in the short run, but now it's caught up to them and they don't know what to do.

Their cars are vehicles no one wants, theres no camaro, the new GTO has balls but looks like a something a secretary would drive to work in, and Ford and Dodge have meaner looking H/D trucks. They need to take a step back and look at the long term effect of what they are doing or planning on doing, if they had done that earlier they "probably" wouldn't be in this mess.

 

[LDB]

Just because the various sports team owners are moronic enough to pay guys that way and the public is moronic enough to go spend $200 for one outing to a sporting event doesn't make it any more reasonable to pay someone $42 to sit on a stool working a stopwatch for 8 hours or to pay someone 8 hours wages when they clock out 4.5 hours after they clock in. As shown during the ATC strike, no one is irreplaceable.

Leo
truck 4958

Support the entire Constitution, not just the parts you like.

 

[elton10]

Well I have no doubt the UAW is greedy.. but the UAW is at Ford and Daimler Chrysler too so how do you explain that? Someone else here was griping about the over paid union workers at $28 and hour making "over 100,000 a year." That doesnt even come close to adding up..2000 work hours in a 50 week year(2 wk vacation) comes to $56 k not even close to $100K.
GM wouldnt have outsourced to Mexico or replaced metal with plastic to save money if the unions hadn't demanded so much? Yeah ! Right!!!

 

[Loose_Cannon47]

Elton, I don't work for GM, Ford, or Daimler/Chrysler, and I'm not a member of the UAW, but I think your post hit THAT nail squarely on the head...the American auto manufacturers no longer build quality or practical vehicles (just look at the number of recalls in the last 15-20 years)...while the price of fuel continues to spiral out of sight, the BIG THREE continues to spew out thousands of gas guzzlers...and are trying to sell them now, at "Employee Prices" (probably about what you would pay for the end-of-year 2005 models that happen to be the only ones included in that great offer)...I don't think the unions are totally blameless, but but they DON'T run the companies...

Loose

 

[NEVERHOME247]

I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THE UAW. PURE GREED, DROVE THEM TO WHERE GM IS TODAY. I NO LONGER HAUL AUTO PARTS. BUT WHEN I DID. IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT THEY HAVE PLENTY OF DEAD WOOD AROUND THOSE PLANTS. NOTHING WRONG WITH PAYING SOMEONE A GOOD WAGE FOR A HARD DAY OF WORK. BUT DOES IT REALLY TAKE ONE GUY TO OPEN THE DOCK DOOR, ONE GUY TO RUN THE FORKLIFT,ONE GUY TO COUNT THE FREIGHT, etc... FOR THE WAGES THEY GET. ONE GUY SHOULD BE DOING THE JOB OF ABOUT FIVE. I REMEMBER GOING TO THESE PLACES. AND MENTALLY PREPARING MYSELF TO TAKE ABUSE AND BE TREATED LIKE TRASH FROM THE TIME YOU ARRIVE AT THE PLANT TO THE TIME YOU LEFT. I GUESS THEY WILL GET A ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT WHEN THEY HAVE TO WORK FOR A LIVING.