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GM goes bankrupt and gets nationalised

ask any union member
they pull the new guy to the side real quick if he works too fast
why is it, when i lived in NY every union worker was usually just standing around on the job site
did i just happen to drive by on one of their ridiculously negotiated coffee breaks despite it occuring at all hours of the day

Happened to me on many occasions when I was a machinist; I got to know the shop steward nearest me very well. :cool:
 
If paying lower wages is so great, how come Toyota posted a larger fourth quarter loss than GM this past year?
The world's biggest car maker by volume posted a net loss of Y436.94 billion in the fiscal year ended March, as it booked a net loss of Y765.8 billion, or about $7.74 billion, in its fiscal fourth quarter.
[...]
Struggling U.S. player General Motors Corp. said Thursday that it logged a $6 billion loss, dragged down by bankruptcy jitters and a global sales slump.


2nd UPDATE: Toyota Sees Deep Losses This FY On Weak Demand - WSJ.com
 
If paying lower wages is so great, how come Toyota posted a larger fourth quarter loss than GM this past year?

I believe those numbers are international numbers, therefore union is pretty irrelevant, since most of each is nonunion worldwide.
 
I believe those numbers are international numbers, therefore union is pretty irrelevant, since most of each is nonunion worldwide.
So, are you saying in GM's bankruptcy, the union's compensation is irrelevant?
 
No, but that when you increase the picture to international scale, it changes things, with GM having a lower percentage of unionized labor overall. This changed the picture somewhat, though I am going to have to think a bit more about it after the hockey game to get a good picture of how. Too distracted now.
 
If paying lower wages is so great, how come Toyota posted a larger fourth quarter loss than GM this past year?

Because correlation does not prove causation. :coffeepap
 
Right so all corps should move to the south where it's cheaper and then all the people will move to the south thereby raising the cost of living. When the tech bubble busted Californians started moving out to Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona... guess what happened? I know, because we looked at these states too. The housing prices shot up as well as the cost of living. Because people with money moved in and could afford to pay more.

No, you misunderstand my point completely, or are just ignoring it.

It's cheaper to live in the south, as you've already admitted. If we can live better on less income than northerners, why should employers pay more. I make a very good living now, but I would be a pauper in New York City.

And by the way.... we don't want or need any more people moving here.

The people in the Toyota plant here in Kentucky are very happy at their jobs. In contrast, employees at the two ford plants are constantly griping about one thing or another.

As a side note, you can eat off the floor of the Toyota plant. After walking through either of the Ford plants, I need to buy a new pair of shoes. That says something for the pride of the people working in the two different plants.
 
The people in the Toyota plant here in Kentucky are very happy at their jobs. In contrast, employees at the two ford plants are constantly griping about one thing or another.

I have heard stories about how wonderful it is to work for Toyota in the US. People who have gone to a Toyota plant(not sure where it is) have come back and told stories of how wonderful the place is, and how nice and happy the people are. Supposedly, Toyota treats it's people really well, and the people respond really well to it.
 
I have heard stories about how wonderful it is to work for Toyota in the US. People who have gone to a Toyota plant(not sure where it is) have come back and told stories of how wonderful the place is, and how nice and happy the people are. Supposedly, Toyota treats it's people really well, and the people respond really well to it.

I've been in a lot of auto plants throughout the U.S. The Toyota plant in Georgetown, KY is the cleanest, by far, I've ever seen. The people there don't seem to have a chip on their shoulders like many of the others I've been in.

Detroit Diesel was one of the worst I've ever been in as far as the attitude of the people working there..
 
I've been in a lot of auto plants throughout the U.S. The Toyota plant in Georgetown, KY is the cleanest, by far, I've ever seen. The people there don't seem to have a chip on their shoulders like many of the others I've been in.

Detroit Diesel was one of the worst I've ever been in as far as the attitude of the people working there..

I hated going to UAW plants. We are there, as guests of the company, working to sort parts to ensure that no mistakes get through, and the workers feel it is there job to treat us like crap because we are not in a union. Hell, we could not even use the nice bathroom, but had these trashy old ones to use for the nonunion visitors.
 
I hated going to UAW plants. We are there, as guests of the company, working to sort parts to ensure that no mistakes get through, and the workers feel it is there job to treat us like crap because we are not in a union. Hell, we could not even use the nice bathroom, but had these trashy old ones to use for the nonunion visitors.

At the Ford plants here in Louisville, you can't park on the property if you have a foreign car. They make you park at least 1/2 mile away. I have a Chevy and the person I was working for didn't think they would let me in, but they did. She warned me that it might get vandalized.

At Toyota, they could care less what you are driving.
 
OK. Where you going with this? I am nonunion and have a forklift and crane license. I think I am missing something.

sounds like you are not qualified because you are not union? just my guess.:lol:
 
Just curious did any body around here own GM stock?
 
My sister relied on my mother to babysit thereby saving her HUGE amounts of money on childcare. My neighbor basically works to pay for the cost of childcare. There's one example.


Well it's obvious that you really don't understand the value many people get out of their community. You also, like me, have the ability to pack up and move on to a better situation but many people have roots, best friends, family, church, whatever. My wife lived her entire life in N.CA. and it was VERY difficult for me to convince her to move 3000 miles from everyone she knows. It took 2 years before she started to feel comfortable here. I was in the military so, like you, I pulled up my roots long ago and it's been much easier for people like us to move around the country.

If you need a job, and someone 2 or 3 states away offers you one, and you don't take it, you should lose all unemployment/welfare/food stamp benefits....
What you do is MOVE, and associate with your NEW community. See? Your first community cannot afford to feed you forever. Comes a point that you have to DO something for yourself....and in this case it is called moving to a community with more jobs than employees....a community that needs YOU as much as you need it...
 
My father was a democrat, union, machinist.....at first.
He became a republican, union hating, machinist....

That occurred when he became a shop steward. He saw the improper use of the power that unions have. He saw incompetent and/or lazy workers making the same wages he made. He saw the union leadership misusing union funds. He saw his union call a strike that ended up costing the membership their jobs for many months, and the little they gained in hourly wages would take them over 10 years to make up.

HIS union used the power incorrectly, and failed miserably in its responsibility to its members.

Unions were a good thing at first, it helped give the workers a better life and more say in their lives/jobs. But then it started abusing its power.
The pendulum swings, and can't stop at a good spot, because there are too many selfish, greedy people who keep pushing it...
 
"Leveling the playing field" like this in no different that raising average class scores by making the test easier.

Otherwise known as.....socialism.
 
Otherwise known as.....socialism.

We all know that is just not fair for some people to have more than others.
 
If GM couldn't be a competitive force in today's automarket, let them collape fulling. There's no point in wasting tax-payer's money to keep this company limping along when there's plenty of other fine auto companies to choose from.

Yeah, the Big Three, (Toyota, Honda, Nissan), and then there is Subaru, Mitsubishi,Mazda, Suzuki..
We could learn from the Japanese....
But did we ??
And the Germans, and they are soon due for retiring hundreds of working men....its also 40 years for them...
And lets, maybe for the first time ever, be fair about things.
The UAW takes a hit, and the overpaid auto industry executives must also be censured..
Our government has failed in not helping long ago.....the education of our young, as I see in these forums, is poor...
The bottom line is....we all have failed....lets learn and work toward a new beginning for our industry and our nation....
Forget the blame game - with mirrors, this does not work...it only wastes time....
 
My father was a democrat, union, machinist.....at first.
He became a republican, union hating, machinist....

That occurred when he became a shop steward. He saw the improper use of the power that unions have. He saw incompetent and/or lazy workers making the same wages he made. He saw the union leadership misusing union funds. He saw his union call a strike that ended up costing the membership their jobs for many months, and the little they gained in hourly wages would take them over 10 years to make up.

HIS union used the power incorrectly, and failed miserably in its responsibility to its members.

Unions were a good thing at first, it helped give the workers a better life and more say in their lives/jobs. But then it started abusing its power.
The pendulum swings, and can't stop at a good spot, because there are too many selfish, greedy people who keep pushing it...
I take it that the industry executives are not in this category ??
Lets stop this childish blame game, and return to work (learning, studying)...
If not, we can hand over the keys to our nation to the Chinese and Japanese...
 
..
Forget the blame game - with mirrors, this does not work...it only wastes time....

I'm all for that, but everyone has to get on board . . . starting with the President.
 
I'm all for that, but everyone has to get on board . . . starting with the President.
Interfering with the free matket only delays the time it takes for the free market to resolve economic issues in a positive, sustainable manner.

The Obama (et al) are far more interested in shaping and molding the economy into their own socialist image than getting it back on the track to prospertity.
 
Yeah, the Big Three, (Toyota, Honda, Nissan), and then there is Subaru, Mitsubishi,Mazda, Suzuki..
We could learn from the Japanese....
But did we ??
And the Germans, and they are soon due for retiring hundreds of working men....its also 40 years for them...
And lets, maybe for the first time ever, be fair about things.
The UAW takes a hit, and the overpaid auto industry executives must also be censured..
Our government has failed in not helping long ago.....the education of our young, as I see in these forums, is poor...
The bottom line is....we all have failed....lets learn and work toward a new beginning for our industry and our nation....
Forget the blame game - with mirrors, this does not work...it only wastes time....
The sad part of this is that the American Big 3 taught the world, how to make a car through modern mass production methods.
 
I begining to wonder if slippery slope is a union spokesperson ;)


I remember people talking about unionizing the entire nation years ago. I cannot believe that anyone would think that would work in the favor of the labor force.
Yeah, how could that possibly work. I mean, we wouldn't want labor to have the upper hand over corporations... they might actually have to pay higher wages for the good of the country. Yeah, better to just keep allowing corps to turn our country into a third world labor market.
 
You are in an unbelievable state of denial.

You raise operating costs on Toyota, you make it more expensive to operate, period.

This does not make GM better or more competitive in any way. It only makes things more expensive for Toyota.

Now, it may have the ancillary effect of causing Toyota to raise its prices and take the market up to a point where GM can bring in enough money to survive, but that's not because GM did anything better. It's only because you're putting an extra burden on Toyota.

That's as plain as day. That's basic math.

If you deny this, if you insist it isn't so, it's like arguing about why things fall and you insisting that there is no gravity. You're just babbling nonsense.




Where do we see any union busting here?

Then I guess what you're saying is that if labor costs were equal then GM would still be going into bankruptcy. Yes?
 
So you're saying the automakers or autoworkers unionized to avoid raising the price of the cars they make?

Doesn't that strike you as more than extremely strange?
Yes, that would be strange. Good thing I didn't say that.

What "unfair" competition? The fact that other countries now make much better cars? Or the fact that other countries aren't as stifled by unions as the Big Three were in the northern states?
Right, there we are again, "stifled by unions". Which means you think labor costs for the big three are "stifling". Why are they stifling? Because their competition doesn't have the same costs?
 
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