Up to 10,000 Chrysler workers could lose their jobs

[liberal N proud]

Workers Worry Twinsburg Chrysler Plant Might Close

UPDATED: 7:58 pm EST February 4, 2007

TWINSBURG, Ohio -- Up to 10,000 Chrysler workers could lose their jobs and at least three plants could close, including one in northeast Ohio, NewsChannel5 reported.

http://www.newsnet5.com/money/10927886/detail.html

[spoony]

1. This is why I want to barf

every time I hear some repub say how good the economy is, how the dow is so high, blah blah. I don't understand the workings of wall street very well, but I do know what anxiety and desperation among working families looks like, and I am seeing that all over the place :(

[rock]

2. Bye-bye, good-paying jobs

Sad

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Government could make accomodations for some of the 45000

soon to lose their jobs at Ford and the 10000 at Chrysler. They could tie tax incentives for new auto plants to hiring those "already skilled in the automobile manufacuring industry". Toyota, Honda and others are building plants in the states.

[cap]

4. Plants moving south to right-to-work states.

no one really cares about quality that is brought by an experienced workforce.

[MrTriumph]

5. Consumers car very much about high quality

and good engineering that make maintenance costs low and resale high.

Sadly, for GM in particular, quality was not a big concern until too late. Why do you think GM has lost half the market share the company once enjoyed? Because they built high quality cars?
Hardly.

BTW, before you trash me, even largely brain-dead GM has admitted to not paying enough attention to quality.

[cap]

7. my point is that the quality is going to decline further..

[Rosemary2205]

8. The quality difference is percieved not real at this point.

The quality difference is only about PR. Toyota will recall a vehicle very quickly while Ford says "sue me".

In addition Toyota and Honda have more bells and whistles in their cars for the same money which adds to the perception of higher quality. However, those carmakers could not afford to put those into the vehicles if Japan wasn't playing games with it's money supply.

[pampango]

10. What is Japan doing with its money supply?

I thought most of the Toyotas, Honda, and Subarus that are sold here are built here also. Also, the Japanese yen has gotten more expensive over the years which would make their exports more expensive, not cheaper.

[MrTriumph]

12. The perceived quality difference is real....

Yeah, I know J.D. Powers says the GM and Ford are catching up in quality.

But look at resale values of late model cars. The twenty year trend continues. GM cars and Ford products have lousy resale values compared to Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans because, despite GM Ford's PR efforts, the public knows there is a real difference in quality.

I am one of many millions of Americans who have answered the call to 'Buy American'. And how has GM rewarded me and millions of other buyers? Well, we paid for the GM cars once when driven off the lot, once again with extensive repairs and one final time in lousy resale values.

[Rosemary2205]

16. What the public "knows" is due to PR.

we "know" a lot of things that just aren't quite accurate.

[Blue_Tires]

9. you mean more plants moving to Mexico and China

for U.S. automakers, any plant they build in the U.S.A. must be a UAW plant---They have that in their contract...

with all the complaining the big 2.5 have made about legacy costs and healthcare, you would think they would lobby harder for universal healthcare, but their vision is so short-sighted its saddening

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. More like Chrysler moving to Germany

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/business/news/article_1256019.php/Report_Chrysler_to_cut_10000_jobs

snip-
The cuts, to be announced Feb. 14, are part of a broader plan to return Chrysler to profitability by transforming itself into a smaller, more efficient company with closer ties to its German parent and Mercedes-Benz, The Detroit News reported.
-snip

with Chrysler, it's a different ball game because of its ties to Europe.

[Dr.Phool]

6. Another blow to the Greater Cleveland area.

The place is almost a wasteland, compared to when I grew up there. Steel mills closed and downsized. No more major breweries. Akron is losing the tire manufacturing segment. It goes on and on.

How much more can one area take?

[InkAddict]

11. Yup, and many that grew up there

took up electronics and IT...and by the 80s forward, look what happened to that too. Merged out of town, consolidated into out-of-state HQs and datacenters, leaving locals behind, outsourced to India/China.

[depakid]

14. "How much more can one area take?"

That's what I keep asking. How in the world can people vote to support right wing trade and economic policies that have devastated so many communities. It boggles the mind.

Ohio leads the nation in job losses:

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/state/15264692.htm

most of which are due to the very things Republicans always vote for:

See, e.g.: http://www.policymattersohio.org/trade.htm

[pampango]

18. What does trade policy have to do with this?

The Big Three are losing market share to Toyotas, Hondas, Subarus, Kias, etc. that are built in the US. There are some imports, too, but there have always been imports (VW Beetles in the 60's). Japan's currency, the yen, is much more expensive that it was in the 60's and 70's so their exports should be much more expensive, which is one of the reasons that they manufacture most of their cars here that are sold here.

I do think that, while the economy, in terms of production and employment, may function with new (Japanese & Korean) factories taking the place of old (Big Three) factories, society does not function well given the dislocation that comes from closing old factories, especially when they are concentrated in certain states or regions. We should adopt a policy slows down, if it can't stop, the closing of old factories, even if it slows down the creation of new factories. Of course, I don't want Japan to stop outsourcing some of their car manufacturing jobs to the US.

[blues90]

15. Isn't this just wonderful , isn't this just great ?

You really have to wonder what employee experience all these years meant , after all the workers are the ones who made it possible for the great gains and success of the major three .

Now they are dropped like so much human waste , this is their thanks .

This was then over the years of cheap products with stacks of recalls passed onto the loyal consumers .

Why not , ship all the good jobs which required hard work out of the country , force these very workers to retrain for lower paying jobs and then ship these away .

What is to become of all of these people who planned and forged a halfway desent life , where do they go now and what do they retrain for , what , the next job for even less pay to be outsourced .

This is no longer america anylonger , it is a state of the third world /global order . It appears the next step is joining the fight in the lied into Iraq war even if you are 60 or starve and suffer in the streets , one way or the other many will die off or simply be drained and give up all hope lost .

[porphyrian]

17. The stocks will shoot up, proving the economy is booming.

Unless you're one of the 10,000 fired employees, anyway. Or the rest of the people in the cities where the closed plants are, since it will destroy those local economies.