How much will this impact the RR’s (NS for sure)?
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2005-11-21-gm-closures_x.htm
HOW MUCH WILL THIS IMPACT ALL OF US?
Moraine and Doraville are NS served. I guess the impact depends a bit on where the production gets shifted to.
They have been telling us for years that OKC would close and the last word was 2007. I don’t know for sure but it seems the plant will go idle first, that is probably the early 2006 date. Either way it will have some impact on BNSF and the local employees.
There was a map of the current railroad traffic from auto plants and their suppliers in Trains about a year or so ago.
Guess that will have to be updated.
Did anyone else notice that the map had South Carolina highlighted, presumably to correspond with the Doraville plant? Doraville is in Georgia (just outside Atlanta), not SC. Looks like “McPaper” needs to crack open a geography book once in a while.
I told you that if Unions keep trying to get higher wages and benifits people would lose their jobs. Sad [sigh]
It’s not entirely about the unions. It’s about American auto industries not being able to compete with the Japanese, Germans, and whoever else exports their garbage to us. We wanted cheap this and cheap that, well now we got it!
The perception out here is that Hondas and Toyotas are designed better.
In the 1970’s, the Japanese manufacturers had a deserved reputation for better quality than American manufacturers, especially in fit and finish. The quality gap has since been closed but the original reputation persists.
Lotus has obviously never appreciated the difference between union and non-union wages, unless he intends to support a family on a Wal-Mart wage scale.
Paul,
Businesses have to think of wages as a cost, like steel. A company is not going to over pay for supplies; neither are they going to pay for high wages. Now because of it (and other factors) none of these people have jobs, a lot of good those unions did, and are earning nothing instead. The money to pay people more has to come from somewhere, in this case the price of the car. If you are in such favor of Unions I suggest you always pay the highest price for everything, since odds are that has the most Union people to pay. Raising wages, be it minimum wage, or by unions, is like inflation, it really doesn’t get anyone any more money, since the people earn more, but also pay more for goods. Unions had their place historically, but have outlived most of their usefulness, becoming collections places for a certain political party, in fact did you know that the ACLU was founded by communist?
Right in that report I can see another bad management idea being put forth again: early retirements. Although this may soten the blow to the people taking the early out, it also means the company will be paying them a retirement salary for a longer period of time, a period where they will contribute nothing to the company’s output of products or services. This idiocy has a lot to do with their current financial situation, they started this in the '70’s as a way to downsize. Now it’s coming back to bite them in the financial butt. The article refers to them as “legacy costs.” On top of that, they’re proposing doing MORE of the same this time around, but I guess they don’t care that the same thing will happen in about another 10 or 15 years. After all, the current BOD and big wheels will be retired with their “golden parachutes.”
Was I the only one that noticed that there’s no mention of cutting any of the multimillion dollar salaried big wheels that made these bad decisions in the first place? I guess they’ll just reward themselves with big bonuses for firing all these people and saving the company so much money.
The sad part about this is if they (big guns) would take a pay cut or get layoff they could save the plants and some (or maybe all) of the employees.
Just image on how much of an impact this will couse to the communities that these plants are in?
The UAW for many yrs has been the most powerful of any industry union. Their members have enjoyed totally 100% covered health care costs by their employer for a long time. This is the sign of a very powerful collective bargin process by the union. Now it appears this is coming to an end. I have no problem, at wages like you make in an auto plant, (some union positions pay well over what rr jobs pay) for a10-15% out of pocket monthly cost to pay for health care. This is a very expensive cost for any employer and by paying a small percentage yourself, people will really be thankful for what they have and not take it for granted.
The current Union contract was negotiated over a decade ago…its not like the Unions got up last week and said we demand this and this…
Place the blame exactly where it belongs…GM Management made bad decisions, produced a so-so product, sat on their fannys as their US competition made big changes in the type of car they built, and how they go about building them.
GM knew years ago how much it would be paying out in all those “union” perks and such….its not like they don’t have accountants and such.
Same unions work at Ford and Chrysler, and those two are not in the toilet…
As for foreign autos…most of your Toyotas and Hondas are made right here, in Tennessee and Kentucky, and Toyota is building a plant here in Texas.
All built by American auto workers, all paying those extreme union wages.
Ford and Chrysler both took a look at what they would be paying out in retirement, benefits and such well over a decade ago, and decided to buy out who they could right then, and replace them with robotics and automated manufactures, then streamlined how they build cars, introduced new designs, and instituted quality controls that makes GM’s look so shabby by comparison.
Honda and Toyota, Nissan, most of the established “foreign” makers also got their quality control way better than GM over a decade ago…my neighbor is still driving his 1975 Datsun B1500 pick up…well over 300 thousand miles on it.
So, two of the big three paid attention when they should have, one of them decided that business as usual was the way to go…
Daimler Chrysler is blowing GM away, Ford Trucks out sell GM…Go figure whose management teams were on the ball and looked ahead, and whose were more worried about their green fees than their business…
I mean, my god, who in their right mind would buy Fiat?
Ed
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Lotus098
I told you that if Unions keep trying to ge
It is amazing that GM is going to take over three year to make these cuts. They are not facing bankruptcy in three years but this year.
Ed, the voice of intellect, fact and reason. You are such a jerk ruining that little queen Lotuses anti Union rhetoric wtih fact. Lotus, put a sock in it. By the responses you get, can you not see that more than a few of us think that you are a little dork. Go away!
yes gm has screwed up big time and they now have the federal govt looking in their books too.I just hope the retirees dont loose their money and the other workers can keep working to feed thier families.
stay safe
joe
I Agree With You Guys.Yes,I Think That There’s A Lot Of Union B.S. Involved,But There’s Just Way Too Much Management B.S. as Well.If They’d Quit Giving Out All These Bonuses To Upper Management,Maybe A Lot More Companies Wouldn’t Be Going Broke!!
Not exactly a bolt from the blue. The sales of highly profitable SUVs masked GM’s deterioration for the past several years. Now that sales of SUVs have tanked along with total market share, GM is suddenly faced with its day of reckoning.
GM has a highly profitable financing operation (GMAC) and foreign auto operations are doing moderately well. Its Buick operation China, which sells entirely to the internal market, has been notably successful. Despite this, for the 3 quarters so far this year, GM has lost $3.8 billion, mostly attributable to domestic auto sales.
The reaction of business analysts to GM’s announcement seems to be pretty tepid. Most seem to feel that it’s a minimal first step that doesn’t address its core problems: pension costs and neglecting to diversify its product base (e.g. hybrids). GM is coming to market in 2006 with a bunch of new models – you guessed it – SUVs planned years ago. The huge cutbacks in the ‘90s, under an agreement with its unions, loaded GM with about 3 retirees per active employee. The immediate effect of the closures will bring that ratio to about 6 retirees per employee. I’m not certain that any corporation can remain viable for long under such an enormous burden.
Cutting management and management benefits will save a few tens of millions, but we’re talking of many billions that GM must cut. A mere gesture, IMO.
At the rate GM is burning through its cash, I’d give it closer to two-and-half years, unless it takes some pretty drastic steps. The PBGC is another stellar example that no good deed goes unpunished, especially when it comes to acts of government. Congress meant to save, at least partially (note), worker pensions, but the unintended effect was that it also gave corporations additional incentive f