Bruce Nunnally Posted November 16, 2008 Report Share Posted November 16, 2008 COLUMBUS, Ohio – Even as Detroit's Big Three teeter on collapse, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said Saturday that the problem is not the union's contract with the automakers and that getting the automakers back on their feet means figuring out a way to turn around the slumping economy. "The focus has to be on the economy as a whole as opposed to a UAW contract," Gettelfinger told reporters on a conference call, noting the labor costs now make up 8 percent to 10 percent of the cost of a vehicle. "We have made dramatic, dramatic changes and the UAW was applauded for that," he said. Instead, Gettelfinger blamed the problems the auto industry is suffering from on things beyond its control — the housing slump, the credit crunch that has made financing a vehicle tough and the 1.2 million jobs that have been lost in the past year. [more] Bruce 2023 Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing Follow me on: Twitter Instagram Youtube Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrEldo97 Posted November 16, 2008 Report Share Posted November 16, 2008 The UAW may be a part of the problem but certainly not all of it. IMO incompetent management and an entrenched corporate culture resistant to change is THE problem. It has become fashionable over the past 25 years or so to bash workers unions. I would hate to think of what the condition of the American working man would be without unions - study 19'th and early 20'th century American industrialization for a glimpse... And a comment I heard 25 years ago when I had to attend "Union School" when the company I worked for in Massachusetts was facing unionization. The instructor's first remarks were: "Any company that gets a union deserves it. If you treated your people well we wouldn't be here." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave in Texas Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 NAFTA is working just as Ross Perot said it would. Some US auto-makers sent jobs across the borders, but auto-parts makers went over the borders as well. I've heard that 'giant sucking sound' for too long. GM Reman 4.1 engine Dec '08 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarrenJ Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 And a comment I heard 25 years ago when I had to attend "Union School" when the company I worked for in Massachusetts was facing unionization. The instructor's first remarks were: "Any company that gets a union deserves it. If you treated your people well we wouldn't be here." I like that! Far more than just a grain of truth there. A wag recently remarked it was the fault of the "negotiators" (read: lawyers) for both sides that bore the ultimate responsibility (!). Jeeze. Insert you favorite lawyer joke here: [ . . . . . ]. Regards, Warren There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved. - Ludwig von Mises Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrEldo97 Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 Yeah, when the instructor came out with that remark I thought the company president (who was attending the classes) was gonna blow his breakfast. The company wasn't unionized in the end, but, in a "Free Trade" buyout was purchased by a series of UK holding companies that broke it up and sold off assets until virtually nothing remains of the company today. We must END FREE TRADE!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarrenJ Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 Yeah, when the instructor came out with that remark I thought the company president (who was attending the classes) was gonna blow his breakfast. The company wasn't unionized in the end, but, in a "Free Trade" buyout was purchased by a series of UK holding companies that broke it up and sold off assets until virtually nothing remains of the company today. We must END FREE TRADE!!!!!!!! Free trade is an interesting thing. After WWII the U.S. pretty much surrendered its tariffs in return for military hegemony in the Western world. The price was paid and it was a good deal for decades. With the collapse of the U.S.S.R. it appeared (illusory) that a peace dividend was at hand and we might forgo the deal. Today Russia is a democracy in name only and seeks its own hegemony over western Europe, the Balkans, Ukraine, Georga etc. Last winter it viciously exploited its natural gas supplies to bend European policy. Where was I? Oh yeah . . . free trade. In the vast scheme of things we've done very well with nearly free trade. We pioneered it. We made it work. The alternative to free trade is tariffs; never proven to work and often proven to create calamity. If the U.S. cannot survive free trade, the world, as we know it, is simply doomed. Regards, Warren There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved. - Ludwig von Mises Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrEldo97 Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 "Free Trade" is a race to the economic bottom with wealth controlled by the fewer at the top. I negotiate and execute business contracts for a living and I have seen more often than not businesses (especially small businesses) fall to predatory contracting practices by customers who lied and squeezed them to the point of collapse and then pull the plug on them and move everything to the Phillipines, or India, or China. From Alexander Hamilton: "Great nations do not have trade partners. They have trade competitors and rivals. Trade surpluses are superior to trade deficits. Tariffs on foreign goods are preferable to taxes on U.S. producers. Manufacturing, not finance, is the muscle of the nation. Economic independence is vital to political independence. " If we continue to pursue "Free Trade" as currently defined we are doomed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarrenJ Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 Most often, given military hegemony over the western world and western civilization as an objective not withstanding, I favor William F. Buckley's plan: Tariff them as they tariff us. Unfortunately, it just don't work. There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved. - Ludwig von Mises Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrEldo97 Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 Most often, given military hegemony over the western world and western civilization as an objective not withstanding, I favor William F. Buckley's plan: Tariff them as they tariff us. Unfortunately, it just don't work. I agree with WFB as well - good point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarrenJ Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 Most often, given military hegemony over the western world and western civilization as an objective not withstanding, I favor William F. Buckley's plan: Tariff them as they tariff us. Unfortunately, it just don't work. I agree with WFB as well - good point. BUT, there was the point about how it doesn't work . . . . There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved. - Ludwig von Mises Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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