[ssmit132]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/01/2586451.htm

Fortunately, the Australian and other international GM branches are not likely to be affected by this.

[darkone]

GM would be fine if it kicked the unions out and did direct hires only. That is what Nissan, Toyota, Honda do for their plants in the USA. Maybe we should follow their lead?

[BloodEagle]

Again? 

[BlueFlames]

Again?

That was Chrystler last month, not GM.

[Mikes]

GM would be fine if it kicked the unions out and did direct hires only. That is what Nissan, Toyota, Honda do for their plants in the USA. Maybe we should follow their lead?

You don't really want to seriously suggest "Unions" are the reason why GM is in the mess they are currently in do you ? lol...

Cheap shot in my eyes... and at the wrong target to boot.

[karajorma]

If all else fails, blame socialism.

[NGTM-1R]

You don't really want to seriously suggest "Unions" are the reason why GM is in the mess they are currently in do you ? lol...

Cheap shot in my eyes... and at the wrong target to boot.

Why not? Union shop destroyed the steel industry. Granted, GM has spent decades running itself into the ground in just about every way possible, but if you think unions are not part of the problem then you don't grasp how they work. They are created to secure certain things. The problem is, what do they do when they successfully secure those things?

They have to get a new objective or become irrevelant. They uniformly get a new objective, and in the end they keep pushing, and pushing. They lose touch with what is realistic, necessary, or feasible (rather horribly). Satan came to Jesus, but they're still out there trying to fight sin. Something similar happens with many other groups who existed originally to secure certain rights, race-based or otherwise.

[SpardaSon21]

Unions are partially to blame.  GM has been spending a lot on retiree health care and pensions at the "request" of the UAW.  Now the unions aren't fully to blame, since GM could have told the UAW to frak off.  However, times were good and everyone was high on the hog, so GM just said "okay".  What I don't like about all of this is that the government is trying to take a 60% stake in GM and force poor business practices down GM's throat, dooming them.  Obama wants GM to make smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, which is not what the U.S citizens want to buy.  The U.S. people want S.U.V.'s, and unless GM is making S.U.V.'s, the American people won't be buying many GM vehicles.

[Mikes]

You don't really want to seriously suggest "Unions" are the reason why GM is in the mess they are currently in do you ? lol...

Cheap shot in my eyes... and at the wrong target to boot.

Why not? Union shop destroyed the steel industry. Granted, GM has spent decades running itself into the ground in just about every way possible, but if you think unions are not part of the problem then you don't grasp how they work. They are created to secure certain things. The problem is, what do they do when they successfully secure those things?

What i am saying is this: Blaming Unions at this point... is pretty much the economical aequivalent of sticking your head into a hole in the sand while trying to fart "nanana i can't hear youuu" out of your behind LOL

The argument that "Unions are to blame" for GMs downfall simply doesn't hold any water no matter if you look at it from a microeconomic, macroeconomic or even marketing perspective.

It's not really that i hold a particular love for Union movements either, i just find it a hilariously simplistic viewpoint to suggest GMs current situation could have been averted by busting up Unions (and that if you remember, was the original argument i replied to).

They have to get a new objective or become irrevelant. They uniformly get a new objective, and in the end they keep pushing, and pushing. They lose touch with what is realistic, necessary, or feasible (rather horribly). Satan came to Jesus, but they're still out there trying to fight sin. Something similar happens with many other groups who existed originally to secure certain rights, race-based or otherwise.

And this line of thinking as you point rightfully out is not limited to unions... and one could argue, that this is exactly the line of thinking that led us full throttle into the subprime loan crisis.
What after all were banks doing other than (over-)stretching moral and legal limits to increase profits, "to reach another goal" ? In this instance the attempt to play the system backfired so spectacularily that it triggered what appeared as a threath to the system itself,... but the mechanic behind it is hardly anything new. That the desire to "increase profits" under pressure can quickly spiral out of control once certain moral and/or legal limits are broken has already been shown years ago with Enron after all... just on a much smaller scale.

In conclusion: You are pretty quick to lay an universally flawed concept at the feet of a specific group here. I'm sorry ... but that isn't an argument. The idea of the Unions is to be a counterweight to the interests of corporations who would otherwise be at their leisure to exploit individual workers. The idea behind it is competition and compromise, not "more more more" for any one particular side as you make it seem.

That each competing party will try to maximize their individual benefit is only natural ... so you can hardly blame Unions for trying mh ? If you take objection to that... then you are basically questioning one of the very pillars our economic system is built on, i.e. competition, even if you don't realize it. lol.

[General Battuta]

Unions are partially to blame.  GM has been spending a lot on retiree health care and pensions at the "request" of the UAW.  Now the unions aren't fully to blame, since GM could have told the UAW to frak off.  However, times were good and everyone was high on the hog, so GM just said "okay".  What I don't like about all of this is that the government is trying to take a 60% stake in GM and force poor business practices down GM's throat, dooming them.  Obama wants GM to make smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, which is not what the U.S citizens want to buy.  The U.S. people want S.U.V.'s, and unless GM is making S.U.V.'s, the American people won't be buying many GM vehicles.

Data?

I have to find any 'American people' outside of political rhetoric. Since when has the American population ever wanted anything uniformly?

It's a shameless exploitation of the human mind's utilization of prototypes to classify things.

[Polpolion]

which is not what the U.S citizens want to buy.  The U.S. people want S.U.V.'s, and unless GM is making S.U.V.'s, the American people won't be buying many GM vehicles.

This was accurate maybe seven or eight years ago, at least.

[karajorma]

Unions are partially to blame.  GM has been spending a lot on retiree health care and pensions at the "request" of the UAW.  Now the unions aren't fully to blame, since GM could have told the UAW to frak off.  However, times were good and everyone was high on the hog, so GM just said "okay".

Can't say I disagree with saying that higher wages in the US left them unable to compete with foreign companies but I doubt anyone is disputing that. The issue is with darkone claiming that GM could have changed nothing else except the unions and still succeeded.

What I don't like about all of this is that the government is trying to take a 60% stake in GM and force poor business practices down GM's throat, dooming them.  Obama wants GM to make smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, which is not what the U.S citizens want to buy.  The U.S. people want S.U.V.'s, and unless GM is making S.U.V.'s, the American people won't be buying many GM vehicles.

I find this hilarious given the Wikipedia entry for SUV.

Due to high oil prices and a declining economy since the mid-2000s, sales of SUVs and other light trucks have fallen. In June 2008, General Motors announced plans to close four plants manufacturing trucks and SUVs, including the Oshawa Truck Assembly. The company cited decreased sales of large vehicles in the wake of rising fuel prices. The business model of focusing on SUVs and light trucks, at the expense of more fuel-efficient compact and midsized cars, is blamed for declining sales and profits among Detroit's Big Three automakers since the mid-late 2000s. The Big Three were unable to adapt as quickly as their Japanese rivals to produce small cars to meet growing demand. This was due to inflexible manufacturing facilities, and the high wages of unionized workers in the United States and Canada (members of the UAW and CAW, respectively) which make it unprofitable to build small cars.

So you want Obama to throw tax payers money at the problem and then continue to make the same mistake that doomed GM in the first place?

[SpardaSon21]

I don't want Obama to throw any government money at the car companies.  They should have gone bankrupt before going asking Uncle Sam for a handout.

[Roanoke]

"What's good for GM is good for America" - remember when they use to say that ?

[karajorma]

I don't want Obama to throw any government money at the car companies.  They should have gone bankrupt before going asking Uncle Sam for a handout.

Okay but your point about Americans wanting SUVs was bollocks, right?

[Mikes]

"What's good for GM is good for America" - remember when they use to say that ?

Different times. It was absolutely true during that time, but that was before widespread deregulation and an overemphasis of shareholder "value" as the only value that "matters".
Put offshoring into the mix and that sentence becomes some kind of elaborate joke at America's expense.

What's good for GM has only been good for GM (and its shareholders) for quite some time lol.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Great idea to sell the Hummer division off to the Chinese.  Nothing like handing over your military vehicle production division to a not entirely friendly nation.  If the government doesn't block that sale then what the heck are they thinking.

[NGTM-1R]

i just find it a hilariously simplistic viewpoint to suggest GMs current situation could have been averted by busting up Unions (and that if you remember, was the original argument i replied to).

However, it would not have made things worse. And anyways, you seem oddly eager to pick a fight over a topic I've more or less agreed with you on (or so you say now; at the moment you seemed eager to exonerate the unions).

And this line of thinking as you point rightfully out is not limited to unions... and one could argue, that this is exactly the line of thinking that led us full throttle into the subprime loan crisis.
What after all were banks doing other than (over-)stretching moral and legal limits to increase profits, "to reach another goal" ?

That's terribly stretching an idea and not at all similar. I was more thinking along the lines of PETA or even, sadly, the NAACP at times.

In conclusion: You are pretty quick to lay an universally flawed concept at the feet of a specific group here.

"Granted, GM has spent decades running itself into the ground in just about every way possible,"

Next time, make a statement that's based on something I actually said, instead of straw manning so blatantly.

That each competing party will try to maximize their individual benefit is only natural ... so you can hardly blame Unions for trying mh ? If you take objection to that... then you are basically questioning one of the very pillars our economic system is built on, i.e. competition, even if you don't realize it. lol.

Yes. I can. Because in the end, they are not about competition, but about protectionism. That's what unions are supposed to do, protect their members, not foster competition. This is outright dangerous; if you don't like the steel industry example look at what the teachers' unions have done to any attempt to improve education in California, or the California prison guards' union has done to any efforts at reform in the prisons or even meeting federal standards for inmate care. They throttle it. Thinking of unions as a competitive entity is ridiculous. That's not their point.

Great idea to sell the Hummer division off to the Chinese.  Nothing like handing over your military vehicle production division to a not entirely friendly nation.  If the government doesn't block that sale then what the heck are they thinking.

They're selling the Hummer brandname. Besides, the H2 and H3 being produced now are in no way related to the military-grade design, being based on commerical truck chassis. The original isn't even contracted to GM these days IIRC.

[IceFire]

Unions are partially to blame.  GM has been spending a lot on retiree health care and pensions at the "request" of the UAW.  Now the unions aren't fully to blame, since GM could have told the UAW to frak off.  However, times were good and everyone was high on the hog, so GM just said "okay".  What I don't like about all of this is that the government is trying to take a 60% stake in GM and force poor business practices down GM's throat, dooming them.  Obama wants GM to make smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, which is not what the U.S citizens want to buy.  The U.S. people want S.U.V.'s, and unless GM is making S.U.V.'s, the American people won't be buying many GM vehicles.

I doubt that GM won't be making SUV's and CUV's.  Here's the problem...other manufacturers had a competitive lineup in the range from the tiny to small to midsized cars and then up into the crossover/SUV phenomenon.  GM SHOULD have had competitive subcompact and compact cars.  Instead they sold crap like the Aveo which is lauded around the car world as the worst car you could possibly buy.  The Aveo is terrible even for the price point.  And then there was the Cobalt/G5/Ion bunch which were also largely not where they should be competitive wise.  At best they could match their competitors in a few aspects. Then there was the old Malibu which was a disaster in most respects.

GM made some decent SUV/CUVs and trucks but when times were harder and fuel prices went up...everyone flocked to better smaller vehicles.  The portfolio was badly balanced.  Smaller being cars...from the sub to the mid-sized or full sized sedan.  Everyone older than most of us, such as my parents, remembers the absolute crap they had to endure with their vehicle purchases.  Since then they bought a Honda and are looking at a Toyota or a Subaru.  So its two strikes against GM in the past.

Now in the future I see some good things:

1) They already have a competitive truck.

2) Reliability is slowly climbing to where it should be.

3) Their vehicle portfolio is starting to look better balanced.  The new Malibu looks great inside and our, reviewed well against the competition, and has the technicals to back it up.  The Cruze looks impressive and competitive with the Civic and Corolla (we'll see when it arrives).  Now they need a sub compact to compete with the likes of the Fit, the Fiesta, Versa and the Yaris.  OH...and the new Chevy Equinox is equally as impressive as the Malibu...maybe even moreso.

4) Volt.  Looks amazing and it sounds like they are taking their time to do it right....I hope they do.

Building a range of vehicles is the answer...

Oh and I almost forgot...no more bloody badge engineering for 4 or 5 different brands nonsense.  I wonder how many millions were spent making almost exactly the same vehicle for Chevy, Saturn, Pontiac, GMC, Buick, and/or Cadillac over the years?

[darkone]

Found this in an article about GM Employees:

Worker buyouts

•GM will offer new buyouts to all UAW-represented employees under a program that will be presented to workers by June 9.

•Workers with 20 years' experience or more will be offered $115,000 in cash and a $25,000 vehicle voucher.

•Those who worked more than 10 years and less than 20 years will be offered $80,000 and a $25,000 vehicle voucher.

•Workers with fewer than 10 years of experience will be offered $45,000 and a $25,000 vehicle voucher.

•Employees will have 45 days to accept the buyouts following the rollout of the program.

---

And American General makes the Military Hummer - http://www.amgeneral.com/vehicles/hmmwv/