GM posts record loss...

[MOTV8]

Sad but true, the General is bleeding red ink....GM's record loss

I don't run huge multi-national conglomerates so I have no idea, but is buying out your current Union workers so you can find cheaper workers a good strategy? Won't that bring its own set of issues like job training and reduced quality?

[Eddie44]

I don't run huge multi-national conglomerates so I have no idea, but is buying out your current Union workers so you can find cheaper workers a good strategy? Won't that bring its own set of issues like job training and reduced quality?

Normally I would agree with you Dean but in the case of Union Auto Workers they make such obscenely high salaries and their benefits are outrageous. I have a friend who moved down here from Detroit 4 yrs ago and he had a neighbor who worked for Ford as a janitor and was making in excess of $70k a year. Granted the guy had been with Ford for 25+ years but who else in this world pays a janitor that kind of money?

The UAW has bankrupt MI and Detroit has something like 60% uemployment. They are going to have to do something and do it quick or Detroit is going to be a ghost town.

I heard an interesting statement the other day. American Auto Makers are moving plants off shore to save money and Japanese Auto Makers have opened 7 new plants in the U.S. lately. Whose doing it right?

[Drewstein]

This may sound bad, but I believe the Unions are killing themselves. The demands on the employer to meet certain health, wage, and retirement standards causes so much debt that competitors without Unions can easily undercut prices ect.

Japan doesn't have unionized auto workers and still has better quality. This is because they can give you the boot and another person can fill your role rather quickly whereas the Union won't allow that. If anything the Union workers slack off because their jobs are more secure.

[MikeMc71]

Union labor is very complex. At first the auto industry (meaning the companies), let the unions get away with murder when times were high, and than couldn't recover when the Japanese came over here strong in the '70s and 80s. The whole thing has set up a welfare mentality within our working class (which I am a member of). You see it here every time the mines have problems, unemployment goes through the roof, but all the employees sit around and wait for the possibility of getting a high paying job back. Personally, I would go find another job, if its less pay, so be it. Last year when ther GM workers went on strike, part of the deal was retirement bebefits. The union demanded that they stay the same, GM said they couldn't afford it. In the end, the union had to take the program over, and pay it from their oun fund. GM gave them a heafty load of cash to get it rolling, but the union knows it will break them eventually. I own a business here, if my employees want to get paid, they work, if they are sick, they get paid time off, if the PTO runs out, no vacation pay, no more sick pay. They have to use it for both. If they want health care, they buy it like I do. Yes I pay them well enough to afford it. If they want a retirement, they buy it. We have got to get out of the entitlement attitude befoe it kills us.

Just my $.02

[Loud Pedal]

I don't run huge multi-national conglomerates so I have no idea, but is buying out your current Union workers so you can find cheaper workers a good strategy? Won't that bring its own set of issues like job training and reduced quality?

Normally I would agree with you Dean but in the case of Union Auto Workers they make such obscenely high salaries and their benefits are outrageous. I have a friend who moved down here from Detroit 4 yrs ago and he had a neighbor who worked for Ford as a janitor and was making in excess of $70k a year. Granted the guy had been with Ford for 25+ years but who else in this world pays a janitor that kind of money?

The UAW has bankrupt MI and Detroit has something like 60% uemployment. They are going to have to do something and do it quick or Detroit is going to be a ghost town.

I heard an interesting statement the other day. American Auto Makers are moving plants off shore to save money and Japanese Auto Makers have opened 7 new plants in the U.S. lately. Whose doing it right?

VERY well said, Eddie.

[Robert and Elizabeth]

I don't run huge multi-national conglomerates so I have no idea, but is buying out your current Union workers so you can find cheaper workers a good strategy? Won't that bring its own set of issues like job training and reduced quality?

Normally I would agree with you Dean but in the case of Union Auto Workers they make such obscenely high salaries and their benefits are outrageous. I have a friend who moved down here from Detroit 4 yrs ago and he had a neighbor who worked for Ford as a janitor and was making in excess of $70k a year. Granted the guy had been with Ford for 25+ years but who else in this world pays a janitor that kind of money?

The UAW has bankrupt MI and Detroit has something like 60% uemployment. They are going to have to do something and do it quick or Detroit is going to be a ghost town.

I heard an interesting statement the other day. American Auto Makers are moving plants off shore to save money and Japanese Auto Makers have opened 7 new plants in the U.S. lately. Whose doing it right?

VERY well said, Eddie.

[Guest 7]

I don't run huge multi-national conglomerates so I have no idea, but is buying out your current Union workers so you can find cheaper workers a good strategy? Won't that bring its own set of issues like job training and reduced quality?

Normally I would agree with you Dean but in the case of Union Auto Workers they make such obscenely high salaries and their benefits are outrageous. I have a friend who moved down here from Detroit 4 yrs ago and he had a neighbor who worked for Ford as a janitor and was making in excess of $70k a year. Granted the guy had been with Ford for 25+ years but who else in this world pays a janitor that kind of money?

The UAW has bankrupt MI and Detroit has something like 60% uemployment. They are going to have to do something and do it quick or Detroit is going to be a ghost town.

I heard an interesting statement the other day. American Auto Makers are moving plants off shore to save money and Japanese Auto Makers have opened 7 new plants in the U.S. lately. Whose doing it right?

VERY well said, Eddie.