Saw this today... Chrysler upgrades buyout offers for Fenton workers St. Louis Business Journal - by Kelsey Volkmann Chrysler said Monday it upgraded its buyout offers for workers at the plants the automaker plans to close â including in Fenton â as part of its bankruptcy restructuring. Fenton workers within two years of retirement eligibility on the dates their plants close will be placed on leave of absence with 85 percent of their pay until they are eligible for retirement. The offers include a $115,000 lump-sum payment for workers with more than 10 years of seniority who choose to leave the company. Workers with fewer than 10 years of seniority can get a $75,000 lump-sum payment plus a $25,000 vehicle voucher. The offers also include a year of health care, excluding dental, and lower the early retirement age from 55 to 50. Chrysler said in a statement that it set funds aside to finance the buyouts. United Auto Workers must decide by May 26 whether they will take the buyouts and leave the company by May 27. The automaker, which employed about 1,200 workers in Fenton, said earlier this month that it plans to close its Dodge Ram plant in Fenton by September. Chryslerâs other plant in Fenton, which assembled minivans, was idled in October.
If I owned a car manufacturer, I would NEVER let Westerners build any part of them. Go to the Philippines, China, Vietnam, etc. Unions = no profits. They think your sole reason to exist is to supply them with high salaries and lifetime benefits, rather than making a profit. They are the primary reason for the downfall of the Big 3
I had to chuckle this morning when I woke up to the radio news. GM workers at a plant here in Texas were all upset that their plant was closing for 6 weeks and they were only going to receive 70-80% of their pay for that period. Those pooooooor union workers. They're only going to receive an average of $2300 a week while they do nothing but sit on their butts for 6 weeks. I think GM should have told them that they will be garbage collectors for the next 6 weeks and put them on the city garbage trucks. I'm sure that would be against the union contract, though.
Another "brilliant" observer on ET. Toyota uses union workers in Japan and they used to make profits aplenty before the market collapsed. This is like blaming the sub prime borrowers for the CDS and CDO problem. The borrowers were not the problem, it was the lenders who couldn't manage the loans and exacerbated it by collateralized and heavily leveraged it. The only reason the lenders made those loans was to enrich themselves in the short term. Similarly neither are the unions the problems. If management can't manage the company, including managing the cost of the unions, they shouldn't stay in business. The only reason the management did stay in business was to enrich themselves.
Exactly. Delusional air of entitlement. They're making cars, not curing cancer. Aside from that imbecile UAW boss, Gettleplunger, a great portion of the blame has to go to the Big 3 designers. Recently, I was stuck renting a Chevy Impala for a three days (nothing else available)-- I have to say it was the absolute worst p.o.s. I've ever driven in my life. Thrashy, lagging engine, gray, paper-thin, cheap plastic everywhere inside, loose knobs, loose steering, nothing felt tight, uncomfortable seats, ugly, boxy exterior- just the worst p.o.s. ever. Seeming par for the course in everything except Caddy or a Vette. In a recent interview one of the Big 3 execs said "We never really understood that interiors were important to people." Their arrogance and stupidity has been their downfall as well, along with UAW extortion.
1) I owned a contruction company a while back, and was well aware of what unions do to owners. 2) Growing up in a normal residential area, I watched unions: --- put the largest local trucking company and a large factory out of business. EACH SEPARATELY cost about 2000 jobs lost. --- dynamite a nursing home about 4/10 of a mile from our house, because the builder (Altemose) used non-union workers. 3) And who was talking about Japan??? Are you completely unaware that the Japanese companies INTENTIONALLY put their American factories in very non-union areas?: 4) Do you NOT watch the news? About how much more American makers spend on each car that Japan, trying to pay the retirement health costs??? How much union workers make for practically unskilled labor? About job banks and shutdowns, where they make almost all their salary for weeks, months or even years while they do nothing? About the tens of billions automakers would cough up to settle retiree health care, which almost NO OTHER COMPANY PROVIDES??? Q.E.D. ==? You are either a union person or completely delusional. Either way, you have no idea what you are talking about and your comments are 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Don't bother replying, I wil not read the words of someone who cannot grasp reality.
Ehhh.. The unions put cos out of business, lawsuits put cos out of business and so does the gov't put cos out of business. Who gives a rats ass, it's been going on for years, nobody cares.
The only reality you don't grasp is that you (the management) and your neighbors (your fellow Americans, some of them union members) have put each other out of work and you are now left with finger pointing and not much else.