Total and utter nonsense. If unions are the problem, then how do union-heavy European companies like Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes etc. etc. survive? How do they make money? Using your importance-rating system, unions are maybe a 2. Poor government policy (beggar-thyself trade policies, and a healthcare system that places crushing burdens on individual employers) is perhaps a 3, but decades of terrible management rates a 10. The auto companies were driven right into the ground by their managers. There's a reason that people want to drive Hondas, Toyotas, and Audis rather than Buicks or Lincolns, and it's not because American workers are paid too well. The unions are a problem now, because management has put off making the necessary changes for so many years. Now we have no choice but to put half the workers on the street if we want to have an auto industry in five years. If I had my way, the guys who actually put us all in this position would be in jail.
Let's get a few things straight. I said early on in this thread that I am not in favor of bailing out union workers whose excessive compensation and benefits are part of the problem. How crazy is that anyway? Everyone knows that union auto workers are vastly overpaid. They even have a thing called the jobbank that pays them not to work. Now we are about to get the sob stories about how the taxpayers have to fork over more money so they don't suffer, to "retrain" them( which really just means grants to a bunch of training firms with political connections), to guarantee their lavish pensions,etc. Some slob gets laid off at the local facotry from a minimum wage job, no one gives a shit but it's the taxpayers responsibility to bail out the UAW after they bankrupt the auto industry? I don't see it. As for CEOs, I really do not think it is appropriate for exec's who come to DC hat in hand begging taxpayer money to be taking home huge comp packages. If that makes me a bad person, deal with it. If it is just too much for these CEOs to accept, let them quit. As I said, few would be employable except at 90% or bigger pay cuts. I'm relatively certain we can find people to take these jobs at 1 or 2 mill a year. And call me crazy but I'm not going to be lying awake at night worrying about losing the great leaders who drove these companies in the ditch. The larger issue of CEO compensation at companies not getting bailouts is more nuanced. I'm all for CEOs having some skin in the game. Let them buy stock like everyone else, and they can benefit from their superior leadership skills. Eat their own cooking. What infuriates me is runof the mill corporate weasels who get to the corner office using their cronies on the board to drag down obscene packages, options, etc. It is useless to index their pay against stock perfermance because they take 100% of the credit when the stock goes up and have a million excuses when it goes down. Everyone knows 75% of stock movement is the market in general anyway. I might soften my stance if there was a ruthless succeed or out policy at companies, but the reality is most of these guys have as much job security as a tenured university professor. They will be there, drawing their excessive pay, come hell or high water until they retire and are granted an obscene retirement package like the one Hank McKinnel got for screwing Pfizer up.
Somebody needs to do some research. US auto makers have to spend around $2,000 more on each individual car than your European counter parts. Why is that i wonder? Unions. We don't need to change the management of these companies. Without the extra $2,000 the companies would not be in half the trouble their in. The only management that needs to be changed is the Pro-union management in Washington.
Some sort of check on nutso CEO compensation does seem like a good idea. Having government do it is as dumb as bailouts. Better to structure the situation such that shareholders vote on compensation packages for the top officers of a corporation. Let the market decide what's reasonable because each situation is unique. WFC might be OK with an average CEO right now, while C would give everything they have if they could hire somebody who could steer them out of this mess.
The best solution I see to this problem is indeed shareholder voting, but as far as I can tell the "shareholders as owners" theory of public companies fails miserably when you get into the real world. With the exception of private equity or activist-investor types (remember when Kerkorian made a move on Ford?) most shareholders don't closely follow the activities of a company, don't participate in voting, couldn't give a damn whether John Smith Esq. or Bob Jones III is on the board, and have no knowledge, experience, or context to evaluate executive pay packages. Not to mention collective-action problems and all that.
Joe Sixpack the investor with 100 shares won't be helping, but (hopefully) the institutions and major shareholders would look at the bottom line and bring things under control. I could easily be wrong, and I'm sure open to ideas.
no one here gives two shits about America or humanity .. except what's in it for them. you all make a good monkey true humanitarians are as rare as hen's teeth (so quit bullshitting us) at least admit that your all self-serving POS traders
wages are about 3 percent of auto makers bottom line. worst managed corps in the history of the whole world...ever hear that when a new emission standard was imposed, the japs hired 5 engineers .. the americans hired 5 lawyers. ford fought seat belt laws in court for 5 yrs. AIG gets billions without ever opening their books.WTF