OT UAW

a. did they design the cars no one wanted? No
b. did they dictate labor terms?. No they negotiated them with management who approved.
c. did they force GM to give FIAT $2B to get out of an agreement for GM to buy them
d. did they invest billions in Saturn and then let the company wither without new products
e. Did they pay management hundreds of millions as the company made an ever downward spiral? No
f. Did the UAW tilt the output to all the gas guzzlers No
h. Did the UAW design the hardware that wouldn't last and broke all the time. etc.

Tell me how they did it. We made good cars in the '50-'60's with the UAW.

I think you guys listen to much to FOX guys who are really spouting this crap to drive down every working mans wages, so they, the top 1 persent can get an even bigger share of the economy. They already own about 65-75% of all assets.

Why was FOX hyping Tea Parties, so the dumb little guy making under $250K a year would march around to protect the 1 percent who own most everything from paying their fair share of taxes. They put out the distortion that they are paying to much already 45+ percent of their income. The majority of their income comes not from salaries like us; but, from tax free bonds, dividends on stock/capital gains (15% tax rate). The Fox guys and the Freedom Foundationguys must be laughing the a--s off. You really can fool some of the people all of the time. Get them to concentrate and rave about family values, illegal, et-al while picking their pockets. You really can fool some of the people all of the time.

One more question where does the farm bill payout go. The majority go to zip codes in Ny,Ny and Wash. DC. Lot of little farm families there.

The one semi retired farmer got smacked in the face with --he gave $250.00 for his land years ago, and sold it for $7,500.00 per acre. Why the hell should he not sell it for $250.00 then the young farmer could then afford a new tractor. He had to leave for some business he said. Kinda like sharks with blood in the water.

The work ethic is real bad, it got worse in the last 20-30 years. After guys kept pushing the envelope. (ask yourself and be honest now)--If you could goof off for 80% of any given day and not have to answer for your time would you goof off? I agree that the managers caved in to easily to the UAW demands. The real killer for the US based car companies is that the retirees suck down a lot of money and they were too stupid to see 30 years ago that the pensions must be eliminated, and that it would kill them financially.

High taxes in the US

Workers comp. rules and regulations

Highpriced insurance due to bogus lawsuits and workers comp claims.

Complex tax code.

The need to hire attorneys to comply with all the rules and taxes.

Overly complex and onerous EPA rules.

Plaintiffs attorneys waiting in line to sue companies for every little thing their product may have caused.

Unions

fees, permits, licenses, etc.

These items and more have run many companies away.

Gene

Yet a lot of folks are saying that if the suppliers go broke, it's no big deal...because the UAW workers at the suppliers are making $80 an hour like the Big Three workers, when that's DEFINITELY not the case. Because I was a UAW member, I was "supposedly" making $80 an hour and getting paid for NOT working...and it's just not the TRUTH.

And the TRUTH, as always, is the FIRST casualty in these battles. I just wanted to inject the TRUTH into this discussion that's turning into a bashing of ALL union workers, and ALL UAW members.

In the just-under 5 years I was at the frame plant [before they closed--I didn't quit, and I wasn't fired], the company had an annual attendance award of $500 for everyone who only used their allotted vacation and personal days, and had no unexcused absences. [And we could ONLY take vacation days during plant shutdown, at Christmastime and in July, so the company decided when we took our vacations.] I was eligible for the bonus four times. And I collected the bonus four times. So when I hear that crap about how those lazy union workers won't show up for work, it DOES get under my skin, because I know it's not the TRUTH.

I have a diagonal scar on my right wrist where some frame members shifted and I tried to catch them...and continued working the line until break, rather than stopping production to seek medical help. I used my own bandana as a bandage until I could access the first-aid stuff on break. [After that night, I switched from wearing the required welding sleeves, to wearing the Kevlar material-handling sleeves...job description be damned, sometimes you have to be practical]. I could've gotten on the radio and called for someone to relieve me, but in the interim we'd have lost some valuable production. And that production is what made my job, and my paycheck, possible.

It does seem that fox goes out and I mean out of their way to hammer unions.

Example: Remember the union meeting at the swanky hotel in Florida?
Fox tried to drum up some out rage for better than a week. About how the rooms cost $1000 a night. Should the unions be living it up when the country was in ressesion.

Come to find out. Union had negotiated rates of $150 a night. And was not being paid for by share holders or the goverment.
It was paid for from the unions money.
Fox still tried to beat the drum for a few more days any way.

"seemed stupid for me to go in on overtime because someone else did. all people did OT if one did. even if i had no parts to assemble. 12hr ot while laying on a pallet napping. "

How long would YOU stay in business paying top dollar to people sleeping on the clock???

Drawing top dollar in salaries on however many thousands of employees were pulling this kind of garbage while the company was getting no value in return is how they did it... Not to mention all the huge costs for pension "lifers"...

Vandalism & every known thug tactic in the book, if the union didn't get it's way, is how they did it...

Unions had their place 90 years ago. But there are so many people in other parts of the world willing to actually put in a day's productive work for a day's wages, that the simple law of supply & demand has FORCED any large scale manufacturing offshore and away from all this union garbage...

And that is why the companies that are still held by union strangleholds are now failing, too...

HH

So who's fault is it they built JUNK ? the executives ? UAW ? or all of them combined ?

Dennis, I'm not dumb by any stretch, but I am a little guy that can read, do math, and see the rug being pulled out from under us. There are many more just like me. I think you, like many others really miss the point about the tea parties. Do you really think that with the amount of spending going on that cutting taxes for 95% and raising them on the top 5% will come even close to keeping our country from bankruptcy? Do the math. You may not see your payroll taxes increase, but every other tax under the sun and some they probably haven't even thought of yet, will eat up more and more of your paycheck. Raise tax on business, it gets passed on to the consumer. Raise fees, raise energy cost through cap and trade. These are taxes that aren't called a tax. It's going happen and it's going to be ugly.

Currently, my kids ages 13, 15, and 18 collectively will owe an estimated $367,500(I've seen numbers from $111,000 to $134,000 for each kid so I averaged at $122,500) in just interest on the current borrowing based on the out of control spending. That is with no principal paydown figured in. Our kids and their kids have no future with this mess. The tea parties are a back to the basics, spend responsibly, and return to smaller government.

Do some reading about the ever increasing, incremental involvement and control the UAW got over the years with GM decision making.

That being said, although the Unions are a huge detriment, nobody put a gun to the heads of GM execs and made them give in to the UAW, year after year. Ultimately, it was poor management, taking the easy way out and short-term fixes, year after year.

By the way, I don't watch FOX, but I CAN read.

Also, do you recall what the UAW did to John Deere back in the 80s? At the time, the UAW attempted to cripple John Deere Company as a "show of force", to scare General Motors. Looks like it worked. Many small Deere dealers went out of business because of the UAW strike. Our's barely survived, but never really recovered. We lost many loyal Deere customers, who switched brands after not being able to buy parts for almost a year.

You wanna know what closed our plant and put 800 people out of work? Management rolled the dice and lost. Between 2002-2005, China started buying up lots of American steel, and steel prices went crazy...while our company was under a contract as to how much we were paid for each frame. As Ford ot ready to change the frames for the 2005--which got pushed back to 2006--model year, and ask for bids on the new frame contract, Ford decided that they wanted to pay LESS per frame, even though raw materials costs had gone through the roof.

So our company decided they were going to call Ford's bluff,and refused to bid on building frames on which they were sure to lose money. Dana Corp. also refused to bid, because they did the math and realized they'd lose their butts building them for the price Ford wanted to pay as well. To hedge their bets, in the unlikely event that somebody,somewhere, bid on building those frames for Ford, our company took the accounting procedure of taking the entire asset value of our plant off their books...thereby showin a paper "loss," and further "justifying" the idea that our company couldn't afford to build those frames for less.

But then a wild card was dealt. Canada's Frank Stronach and his MAGNA Corp. not only bid on the contract to build the frames for Ford, but offered to build an all-new facility at Bowling Green, to do the work. And, as the sole bidder, MAGNA got the contract.

So our company closed the plant. Nothing the UAW local could do to keep the doors open...we offered to cut waes and benefits, but the company had no product to build there. Company officials told us that steel prices, not labor costs, were the problem.

In 2001, Ford was selling as many as 40,000 Explorers A MONTH; last sales report I read, that figure was currently under 4,000 a month. At that volume, I'm not sure how MAGNA has been able to keep their doors open, much less pay for the fixtures and equipment required to build the frames...because higher volume usually translates to less per-unit costs.

But the UAW didn't cause the closing of the frame plant where I worked...high raw materials costs and management gambling did. So I resent the blanket accusation that the UAW is solely, or even primarily, responsible for the sad shape of the US automotive industry...because it's pure bu11shit.

It did indeed cripple Deere Company. We had no new parts available for a long time. At our own dealership, we changed over to fixing Deere tractors with aftermarket parts and used - and managed to survive. But, we made out becase we were not dependent on making money from parts sales. But we lost many new equipment sales and long-time Deere customers.

I blame the union for my exit. The company was mismanaged without doubt. It may have made no change. Unions are a business unto there own... don't for one minute think they are just out to help you fight the big corporation. They get profits from the number of members...

Simple first-grade math shows the fallacy of your argument.

Management makes a lot of dumb moves.

So do union brass.

Both seem out to hurt the little guy - any make him a peg in a board game, not a real person.

I don't understand why anyone would want another set of govt layer over the top of them - a union. That's all it is.

Now, not all unions are bad, and not all managent is good. There is enough dumb management in both. And some good bright people in both making good choices as well.

But your question is a good one, and if asked fairly - why wouldn't the union brass give the local workers a voice in something that so deeply affected them?

--->Paul

Toyota and Honda are increasing sales because they build a superior product at a reasonable price. The Big 3 are done, it's only a matter of time. Protectionism has never worked and never will. Remember, without customers you don't need overpaid worthless employees.