Help I'm in a combat with blame the worker/unions for GM problems

[mrcheerful]

Now the combat is over how GM in the 1970's to cut costs stopped hiring machinists to work on machines, they brought in unskilled workers, gave them a 3 day training program that showed them which button to push, then kept a few setters to adjust the machines then kept a hand full of repair persons to fix the machines when they broke down. So they had 3 people doing the job one guy did in the past.

The nit wits are claiming the unions forced the CEO's of the big 3 to do the specialization tactics. I come from a long line of GM workers, my grand father started working for GM in 1938, my dad in 1954, his brother 1956 and his baby brother in 1965 as well as numerous cousins who worked for GM in the 70's 80's and 90's. Needless to say family gatherings ended up being factory talk about how GM management was screwing up the factories by getting rid of skilled workers and replacing them with un-skilled workers.

Also I remember that OSHA enacted laws that required trained people to handle oils, cleaning solutions and other hazardous products, nit wits brought that up to as the unions forcing GM for special workers for toxic materials.

As far as I remember the unions had very little to do with any of these things, unions were more for wages and bennies, like paid vacations, paid holidays etc etc etc. It was management that decided how the factories operated and how hiring was done.

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. Management designed the wrong cars. Profits fell.

Its that simple.

[mrcheerful]

2. That hasn't come up, this is about the operation of factories

and the unions telling management that they didn't need the skilled workers they needed to put in high school drop outs to push buttons, As far as I know the unions had very little to do with the operations of the factories, unless it involved a violation of the workers rights.

The nit wits are saying that the unions are the blame for unskilled workers pushing buttons, and having to shut down lines waiting for a setter or repair person to get things up and running.

[Coexist]

5. ask them to back this up. they won't be able to.

[DoctorMyEyes]

8. I never worked in an auto factory

but I've worked in enough factories to know that what they are saying is total bullshit. Laborers don't bring in equipment to reduce the number of laborers needed, nor do they look for ways to eliminate specialized skills.

The only time I can think of that a shop steward would have something to say about who does what is when the company tries to cheat a worker out of their proper wages by having a lesser paid worker perform a higher paid workers job. Which is just the opposite of the crap the people you're arguing with are saying, if I'm understanding your post.

[napoleon_in_rags]

10. oh! That's even nit wittier than I thought.

I thought the argument was a little more complex...

[DoctorMyEyes]

3. Yep! n/t

[Trajan]

7. While that is true, there is more ...

Decades of intentional suppression of wages has had an effect on the ability of working people to 'buy stuff' .... This all came to a head when energy costs spiked, and the adjustable mortgage 'resets' hit on a downturn ... Families are TAPPED OUT ....

ALL cars are moving VERY slowly off the lot ... 'Foreign' cars are not selling either, and they are in trouble too ....

Most families cannot buy ANY car ... good or bad ....

[napoleon_in_rags]

11. Yeah, all true. Did you see that intelligence report?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112100091.html

The bit about scarce resources is increasingly coming into play on top of all the bad policies you mentioned. That's why we really need a US response to the Indian made $2300 Tata Nano pronto. I'm thinking these resource problems are here to say...The question is will our economy totally collapse because people can't get around???

[Divernan]

23. GM made huge profits on SUVs/trucks and neglected their standard auto lines.

I have a close relative who's been an investment banker for one German and two Japanese banks. She commented the Japanese bank she most recently worked for pulled all their loans/funding to GM years ago because of GM's incompetent and stubborn management. Whenever a high level manager screwed up, they were transferred/promoted to a different division. They were making such high profits on the SUV/truck lines that they couldn't be bothered to keep their smaller size vehicles competitive. She feels the current CEOs are psychologically incapable of admitting, let alone learning from, their mistakes, and that they top levels of management should be thrown out.

Critics scream that the American automotive industry cannot be competitive with European/Japanese manufacturers because American workers are getting expensive health care and pension plans. My relative points out the critics conveniently ignore the fact that in those countries, workers' health care and decent retirement pay are provided by their governments, so private industries do not have to factor those costs into their labor costs.

[sandnsea]

4. The government gave tax credits for diesels

the idiots you're talking to laughed at Gore when he said we needed new technology to replace the combustible engine --

and that is why the car industry is in the mess its in today.

It has nothing to do with workers at all. That is THEIR RING, you lost the second you try to fight in it.

Bring them into YOUR RING. Over-consumption and stupid Republicans.

[mrcheerful]

6. Hell these nit wits are beyond stupid they call themselves independent

yet everything they post is either from fuxs news, Rush hide your baby boys or Rove. And Palin is soooooooooooooo smart and intelegent.

[Trajan]

9. Something I seem to recall ...

Dick Cheney and his friends laughing off CAFE standards, because there was SO much oil out there, ... WHY WORRY about using up fuel when there is SO MUCH OIL to pump ......

The auto companies took that baton FROM them and built MORE BIGGER vehicles .... and the soccer moms and nascar dads sucked it all up like momma's milk ....

It was bad advice ... obviously ....

Yet again: They were WRONG ....

[sandnsea]

12. Exactly

and now they're trying to blame the unions for it. I can't figure out why Democrats are letting them get away with it and not nailing them on fighting renewable energy and CAFE standards and electric car technology. And they are starting to sit back and demand a green energy economy, like they're the ones that invented the idea. It's really unbelievable.

[amandabeech]

13. My uncle worked on the line at the old Fischer Body plant in Grand Rapids, MI.

Our neighbors worked at Continental Motors in Muskegon, a supplier.

I don't remember them talking about the union determining how or what vehicles were assembled.

Management wasn't giving up that prerogative, and I don't recall much in the way of unions trying to run plants since.

Keep up the good work.

I'm plugging for the bridge loans here on DU like mad.

It seems like lot of people here think that the UAW and the autoworkers haven't changed any since 1968.

When I write about the 2007 labor agreement or the fact that each of the Big 3 produce hybrids, it seems to be new information to lots of people.

[mrcheerful]

15. Now how is that for odd? I just moved back to Saginaw

From 4 years of GR living. My family have worked for every GM factory and foundry in the Saginaw area so I have seen how GM management has screwed the cities that supported them since 1917. I remember as a kid how the Saginaw river didn't freeze and was told by teachers that the river currents were to fast for ice to form. I found a picture of the Saginaw river taken 10 years before the foundry was put on the river and it showed the city ice company cutting blocks of ice out of the river.

Was given an F and called disruptive for the report I wrote about how it was my opinion that the foundries and factories were polluting the river which was causing the river not to freeze, I was 8 at the time, 1964. Environmental issues were ignored at the time and anyone saying pollution was harming the rivers, land and air were dis credited, heck I remember seeing the smoke cloud that hung over a 3 city block area around the foundries, also the smell that came with said cloud.

By 1985 the factories and foundries were restricted on pollution, no longer did I see smoke clouds and because of closings I saw ICE on the saginaw river, something I had never seen in my life before. 29 years of life without ever seeing ice on a river kind of makes one freak a bit when out of the blue a river freezes.

Btw, I lived off from Butterworth about 1/2 a mile from John Ball park. My SO's step dads grand son was accused of burning the old Butterworth bicycle factory, to be honest he might have.

[amandabeech]

16. Great story! Thanks for sharing.

I grew up near Lake Michigan north of Muskegon. We knew that there were problems with the water in the Lake because of the die-offs of the alewives and the suds that would still be there after thunderstorms. On the west side, people were making money off tourists as well as cars, so it was okay to notice problems with the water by then.

I don't think that you would've received an "F" in '64.

You were some kid, though!

[Hannah Bell]

20. I was 8 at the time>> Pretty perceptive for 8. Funny how little kids

will actually think about things, while your teachers just mouthed what someone told them.

How smart kids get turned into dumb adults.

[CreekDog]

14. i support the unions

even at their worst (not referring to UAW here), they are almost never worse than management.

[illuminaughty]

17. You would have liked Mike Malloy's show today.

He took on some nitwit calling in to say it was the "union's" fault. Malloy fried him with a list of decisions that fall directly on the CEO's that show them directly responsible.

Also pointed back how much the unions have given back to the Corporation.

[Indi Guy]

18. I was around for the first "Big Three" debacle in the 70's - Sadly, northing's changed...

The "gas shortage (& inflated price)" drove American's to buy Japanese sub-compacts -- while Detroit mindlessly kept pumping out the gas hogs.

Ford came up with the "Pinto" ...which was fine if you had your own engine mechanic, or weren't afraid of your gas-tank exploding in a rear end crash.

The "big three" are so afraid to admit that they were ever wrong, that they can't even be humble when asking for money. They blame the workers for their shortsightedness.

Honda & Toyota workers aren't scapegoated. They work for successful companies with vision.

[B Calm]

19. In 1973 I worked at a GM foundry when I got out of the Navy. I was

a iron pourer, and we had a total of over 150 iron pourers on three 8 hour shifts. Before GM closed down the old foundry in the 1980's there was 6 robots doing what 150 hourly employees use to do. This bullshit about union labor costs is causing GM problems is just that, BULLSHIT!

[B Calm]

21. You'd thought by eliminating labor costs with robotics, it would have

dropped the price of automobiles, but just the opposite happened!

[izzybeans]

22. There is no legitimate excuse for hiring unqualified workers to maintain

your most crucial equipment, period. Money is always the excuse for piss poor judgment. "Well I was forced to be so short-sighted because the labor unions made me do it."

In my line of work, that sort of short-sighted, irrational choice would surely get me fired.

Besides my point is moot, given the information directly above.

[truedelphi]

24. Don't waste your valuable time trying to explain things to certain types of people

There is little you can say to make them give up their idealogy.

To them, the "surge" is working, Bush was a great though perhaps failed President, and Unions are why we are in this fix.

If you MUST discuss, Try to throw them off the topic (Don't feel bad - they use that tactic all the time)

Ask them if they truly believe that the hudnreds of thousands who bought sub prime mortgages are the real reason we are economically screwed right now. If they say yes, start telling them that the real reason for the massive GLOBAL market failures is the creation of complex "fianancial instruments" that Wall St types created to offer SIV's, and Credit Default swaps for purchase. That all these instruments were left unregulated, and that these instruments have cost the global economy at least 620 TRILLION dollars.

The rich blame everything on the "other"

The butler killed the wife, the Unions killed the auto industry, and a bunch of raggedy poor people bought houses that they could not afford, because they (the poor people) were banging on mortgage brokers doors demanding the mortgage industry create the subprime mess.

[electricD]

25. of course

Of course, when all else fails, blame the union worker. After all, it WAS their sweat AND blood that made them their fortune.