You Cannot Kill the Auto Industry

[drumtrip]

I worked for Arthur Andersen, I was not one of the 110 people out of 95 thousand who worked on Enron. I lost my job because of it though. These are good people, maybe not democrats, maybe not republicans either.

I was making crap when I lost my job. These people want to do their jobs, because they are union, because they want to bring home food to their families. Who are we to deny them that.

To say f*&k GM, is a slap in the face! I do not have enough posts to be so bold but really, it is not the ceos, or the execs that get hurt. It is me, and them. We all deserve better.

[dugaresa]

1. There are a lot of people whose jobs are tethered to the Auto Industry

to list some...


Any company that makes controls - these are the companies like Siemens, Allen Bradley...etc They make the stuff used on assembly lines

Any company in the tire business - Cooper, Firestone..etc

Any company in the plastics or molding businesses..

Any company in the industrial glass industry -PPG makes windshields...

Any company in the carpet industry..that makes the rugs that go into cars...

There are a lot of companies whose livelihood is tied to the Auto Industry including small little shops that may only make ashtrays...

Some folks may even work for companies and not realize how closely their own jobs may be linked...

I work for a company that does a fair amount of business in the Auto Industry...while not all of it, we would have layoffs as a result of the Big 3 going belly up.

[drumtrip]

2. Thank You!

We are not the bad guys (I dont work for andersen anymore) However, no matter what, so many people depend on GM to keep running, i am not saying bail them out, I am saying don't condem. A lot of us just want to still be able to live our lives

[dugaresa]

6. I have a close friend who works in banking and this person told me

that if the Big 3 go belly up ...that will be the beginning of the Second Great Depression.

I have never seen this person this nervous in all my life and we got each other worked up into a lather over our fears over this issue.

Now I think the bail out should be structured, but I don't think we can let them go out of business.

People don't realize even the extent to which the pensioners will be devastated. I know a number of GM retirees, and folks who worked for GM subsidiaries who have GM pensions...those folks will be on the streets without those pensions.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. There are those around here...

Who are Panglossians: "Tear it all down and everything will work out ok!". Fuck that. Such attitudes are selfish, childish and only serve to illustrate hiw shallow their understanding of the effects of such a horror would affect the nation as a whole.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. The question is ...will this bailout be for the greater good?.

There are those who think that the govt bailout of the auto companies will be the beginning of the end of union jobs in that field.
It will be a way to justify union busting in the manufacturing of automobiles...

what do you think?

The companies should be sold to the workers who have given their lives to them. CEOs have come and gone. It is the workers who made the companies great, when they were great, and the CEOs who have ruined them.

[drumtrip]

7. It might

While it does though I might starve. The good of the many outweigh the good of the few. I think union is precisely why the companies succeeded and I think that will show up

[BrklynLiberal]

12. I agree 100%, and that is why I would prefer to see the CEOs dumped, and the automobile industry

turned over to those that really made it the great industry that it was.

[baldguy]

5. Do you want Andersen & Enron to return?

Remember, their officers were committing crimes that cost their clients billions of dollars - who lost their life savings, their homes, their health, and sometimes their lives.

GM may not be involved in crimes, but it's problems stem from bad decisions made by their management - bad decisions made repeatedly, year after year. Without drastic changes, there's no reason to bail them out.

What Barney Frank said about certain financial institutions is also true about certain auto manufacturers - if they're too big to be allowed to fail then they're too big to be allowed to exist.

[drumtrip]

8. Um...

How can I clarify? I want to be objective :)

[baldguy]

10. Why should we bail out the auto makers if they don't change the way they do business?

Is that simple enough for you?

[drumtrip]

14. sorry

i didnt want to bail at all, did i respond to the wrong question?

[dugaresa]

9. so you would be okay with mass layoffs at some PPG plants

because their orders for windshields suddenly go away?

While I agree that the management sucked....do you realize how many companies are tied to this Industry?

This could trigger not just tens of thousands of layoffs, but it could literally mean that hundreds of thousands if not more than a million folks would lose their jobs across the entire nation and even the world.

[drumtrip]

11. No!

No I want no layoffs at all. I don't have a solution, i was just saying closing GM is not the answer

[baldguy]

13. If they supply manufacturers of cars that don't sell, yes.

Don't go throwing good money after bad. GM & Ford have to build cars that will sell - not only here, but over there too. Ten years ago GM had two cars - the EV1 and the Hummer. One would have put them on track to be the market leader in a new WORLD market for efficient electric cars. The other was a substitute phallus for assholes with small dicks. Guess which one they trashed, and which one they're still sinking millions of dollars into? One they would be able to sell to anyone, anywhere in the world - in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in S America. The other is limited to the small number of people with inadequate sexual equipment & with $100K to spend on a car.

[madrchsod]

18. we already do...it`s call gm world platform

the basic platform and components are used for gm cars that are built around the world. pontiac's are imported from Australia and saturns from europe. world class quality buicks are made in Australia and imported to china not the usa..

the ev1 was a concept vehicle it was never meant to be brought to production. what was learned from the ev1 has been applied to the volt. the volt will be the first production all electric car. the only thing holding the sales is the lack of batteries and money for people to buy them.

[ContinentalOp]

19. The volt isn't all electric, it's a hybrid.

It might be the first production plug-in hybrid if it ever actually goes into production. I'm sure a plugin Prius will come out first though. In fact, the Japanese and European Priuses already have an "EV" mode where you push a button and it runs purely on the electric motor for as long as it can.

[Oregone]

15. I say fuck em...GM included.

Nationalize them and take the factories. Create a national "Green Volkswagen" type project, pumping out automobiles by the millions. Offer tax rebates for purchasers, and implement a moderate auto-tariff program. Use profits from the business to pay the workers better, as well as pay for a national universal health care program. Use the tariff fees to retool the factories and research/develop the green prototypes. Make it patriotic to buy these, damn it.

[napoleon_in_rags]

16. Who are we to deny them our money?

That's what this is about. My state is facing a 4.5 billion dollar budget shortfall this year, critical social programs are being cut. And your priorities are with propping up a failed private corporation?

[madrchsod]

17. get rid of the top management

hire people who have a real stake in the company.have an independent board regulate the companies.


for those who think they should go out of business i hope you have enough cash to weather the depression the closing of our auto industry will cause.

it`s sad that any democrat would think that losing millions of jobs and hundreds of billions in lost wages is somehow a good thing.

[Hannah Bell]

20. Yes, gotta save those $14/hr, no benefit jobs.

http://forums.motortrend.com/70/7124982/the-general-forum/14-per-hour-the-new-auto-dream-job/index.html

Help Wanted: Autoworkers at $14 an Hour

February 21, 2008

By Michelle Krebs

New labor contracts negotiated between Detroit’s automakers and the United Auto Workers union last fall, combined with upcoming buyouts and retirements of aging baby boomers, may lead to a healthy hiring spree of engineers and hourly workers by auto companies nationwide, according to a new study.

The overall employment level for workers at auto companies in 2016 will be about the same as in 2007 — about 355,000 people — well off this decade’s peak of nearly 500,000, says a study on automotive hiring trends released this week from the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

However, the study concludes, the auto company workforce of 2016 will have a different makeup than today’s.

Auto companies will hire replacement workers for people taking buyouts or retiring. The new production workers for the Big Three will be paid $14 an hour — about half of what their counterparts currently earn — in accordance with the contracts negotiated last fall.>>


They've already got it planned, bailout or no bailout.

Fewer workers, lower wages, fewer benefits.

US workers should be in the streets, not giving corporations & banks their money.