I love when a company is succesful they praise management, but when a company like GM is having hard times they blame it on the unions. I think many of GM's problems stem from poor, stodgy management. Sure their costs are high, but that is also a national issue as health care costs are out of control. The govenrment still hasn't been able to fix the health care money pit that we keeping digging deeper in this country. GM is still the number one auto maker in the world and in this country yet they are losing money, while Toyota is minting cash. By the way, I wonder what the upper management of GM and every other company in the US gets for a pension after they retire, 1-2 million a year. I think the CEO of Kellogg's get close to 3 million a year when he retires. If he dies, his wife still gets 1-2 million a year till she dies. So, wait a second, the CEO's make tens of millions in salary and bonus over thier career and they still get a pension in the millions annually, while the workers who poured their life into a corporation get stiffed....YEAH THOSE DAMN UNIONS, IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT!!! Right....last time I checked management agreed to all those crazy generous contracts that the corrupt union forced them into. BS....maybe we should just start paying people a buck an hour to build cars all day long. The ignorance of some on this board is grand.
It's the reason why the CEOs of both don't seem too worried. US taxpayers bailed out Chrysler so they will surely be "convinced" to help out our fellow auto industry giants. Meanwhile, the CEOs will get their $4-5mil a year plus bonus so everyone wins, yayyy. Hey I don't drive, I live in the city but I was told that GM's biggest mistake was to pump out too many idiotic models and then end up with a lot of dead inventory. Comments?
A lot of unions have unreasonable demands and create a lot of obstacles to running a solid & efficient business. The heads of the unions don't work, they just politick. They use their influence, lead the members around by the nose and collect fees from which they make very very nice salaries. If the employees of a business are happy with the boss, they would not pay union fees but if you as the union pres or representative stir up some ideas which convince the workers that they are being mistreated, deserve more and need to be properly represented, well that's more money in your pocket. The printing business was killed off by 1) the PC & 2) Unions. Computer age already made it a very rough business but the unions totally finished it off. Owners were shutting down their business cause they just could not deal with the union nonsense anymore. Someone I know who had a printing business, ended up going to the union meeting and talking to the president after. He told him that with times being really rough, all the nonsense they were stirring up will just shut down almost every printing business left and all these guys will be out of the job. The president's reply was "Yeah but I will still have my job".
Wilburbear, you can buy an American car for thousands of dollars less then the a foreign one. Aren't you the one that loves Wal-Mart because they sell 7$ shoes? Don't you shop there all the time because their stuff is so much cheaper? You should love GM. What is this 'sending a message' all about. Capitalists like you should buy the best deal! You're saving 10$ on a pair of shoes and blowing an extra 3K on a foreign car??????? BTW, I drive a GM truck, got it for an amazing price and it's a great car! I Love it!
GM's management is out to lunch. The can't capitalize on their own best products. They had Camaro/firebird lined up against the Mustang. Camaro does .8G turns, Mustang does .4G turns, Camaro is 3300 pounds and crashworthy, Mustang is 2800 pounds, etc. They never advertised what the differences were. They had engines in Buicks that would break away and go under the car in a head on way back in the late 70's but who ever knew it? Mercedes was advertising that feature like they invented it years later. They had side impact braces in the doors in the 80's but who ever knew it?? They sunk a ton of money in the Fiero which was a technological marvel of a car, then they dropped it the next year. they had an engine that was powerful to drive and got 38 mpg in a midsize car, who ever knew it?? Blaming the unions is pretty bad sportsmanship IMO. They will close out a lot of union jobs in the US, move the work to a NAFTA subsidiary and stay in business for a long time probably. GM and Ford have the huge government fleet business pretty will tied up in the US and they don't have to compete with Japan in that market very much so the management is just a bunch of caretakers. BTW my stepdad used to negotiate with the union for an international corporation way back in the day. He told of union leaders yelling and pounding the table in a meeting about what the pay should be if Good Friday fell on a Sunday!! Yeah, the union stuff is way over the top but Ford has done so much better in getting the Unions on board than GM every will. Max
Make no mistake. Management is ultimatly to blame.I've said this before but it's a part you conviently left out in your response. So? If GM has gotten to fat and unable to operate maybe it's time they get what's comming to them: Bankrupcy. This will allow for other auto markets like Toyota and others who are succesful and making money to simply provide the products that the American people desire. That's capitalism. If you don't like it, move to Cuba. Remember what happened to Ben and Jerrys? But you can be sure those Union boses get a sweeter deal than their fellow union comrads. As I said, Management is ultimatly to blame for this fiasco and they deserve to be hung and drug through the streets by their shareholders. Aww. Liberals. Gotta love em.
Right about that. Except for OK Caddy and still terrific Vette, GMs cars are sorryful. If they've got to bend sheet metal anyway, why can't they bend it to look great like a Quattroporte... then put it on a Vette chasis? Dealers would have waiting lists.
Yep. It's capitalism when they get the multi-million dollars bonuses and paychecks. But when it's trouble time, forget survival of the fittest. Government, Please BAIL US OUT! How's that for capitalism? We don't have pure capitalism in this country. If we did, then Chrysler would have died years ago.
Ideal Capitalism = The United States of America with minimal government intervention and a fair playing ground. Currently, we have too much government intervention in the markets and the playing ground is unfair. (CEO bonouses given priority over pension plans and union contracts.) And it's also about time that people wake up and realize that there is no such thing as jobs for life. It's a different kind of world and those who fail to adapt will be left behind begging in the streets.
Boy, that sums it up - heads we win, tails taxpayer loses, and the CEO always lands on a pile of money no matter what. Know what I think did GM in? Crap quality of early 80s Our family was a 'GM Family' straight Buicks and Pontiacs - late model, all the time. One neighbor at the lake commeted at a family gathering that the parking lot looked like a GM dealership, and he even put sale signs on our cars as a joke. But in the early 80s, gatherings included horror stories about our cars - seemed like every single one of us got burned bad Today, with all those people and their kids familes, what percent drive GM? Very, very few. We hear that their quality has greatly improved. But you know what? We're long gone. They screwed the wrong people, and they're paying for it