I've heard it said - just today - that the UAW was partly to blame for the auto industry .........

[Stinky The Clown]

...... problems because they failed to push for a change from big SUVs to smaller, more efficient, more modern cars.

Do you agree with that?

I can see the logic in it, I guess, but I don't see that as the union's role. The decisions about what to build, it seems to me, is management's to make, not the workers'.

[Salviati]

1. Yeah, it seems to me that's one of those "big decisions"

that executives make the big bucks to decide. If they want labor to start making decisions like that for them, then what exactly the hell are they being paid to do again?

[GA_ArmyVet]

2. Not their lane

I am not going to say that unions may not have some blame in this fiasco, somehow someway that I am unaware of, surely choosing the model of car and whats being produced is the exclusive realm of the industry owner/driectors/CEO's. The union represents the worker, the hired labor to perform jobs defined by the Executives. I do not see how they possibly could be held to blame for design and marketing decisions.

[MichiganVote]

3. Sine when has the UAW determined what cars people would buy?

When people were flush they wanted big cars so they BOUGHT big cars so the manufacturers MADE more big cars. Now that people are not flush they want CHEAP cars. Well guess what? The foreign market makers are no longer selling CHEAP cars so they want the American car makers to provide them. Consumers exited the American market for this reason and that reason. Yet somehow they want the American market to stay solvent **just in case**. Its the American people who have had a lousy marketing and manufacturing scheme, not the unions.

Unions exist for workers, not consumers.

[aquart]

4. Unions are supposed to make management decisions?

Then why don't the unions get the big bonuses?

[TBF]

5. Now they're blaming the unions? Where did you hear that? n/t

[safeinOhio]

6. you make a general statement like that, so

I'll make one. It is your fault(the car buyers of America). You wanted big cars and SUVs. You didn't want high gas taxes like other countries, so they had a huge head start on small cars. Their car buyers bought small cars, you didn't until gas prices went nuts. If you don't like the UAW, check out the unions in Germany and South Korea. Then tell me again about who's fault it is.

[tinkerbell41]

7. WHAT????

The UAW represents Labor, the workers that's it. When you vote to go union you are voting for the union to negotiate your wages, benefits and working conditions on your behalf. If the unions in this country are weakened any further by these greedy corporate jackasses, don't think for one second the War on workers will stop. We will all be reduced to minimum wage with no benefits,"Hey if you won't do it I'll find someone who will"!! AGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

[LooseWilly]

8. I saw that post earlier too, and I'll make the same reply here.

The UAW does not have enough power to influence the decisions of a corporation's overall business plan... and it certainly has no power to direct those decisions. In fact, the UAW has its hands full just making sure that the workers don't lose benefits, and minimizing the pay cuts they have to take when management makes bad decisions that screw up corporate earnings.

The decisions about business plans are the justification management uses for lavishing themselves with those extravagant salaries and bonuses. Share the process of making those decisions... they might have to share the profits too...

That assertion in that previous thread was inane... and it remains so in my opinion.

(Ironically, the only blame that could be laid on the UAW would be the costs of benefits, especially health care, for all those workers... which actually argues just as effectively for a nationalized health care system as it does for doing away with health care benefits- from the point of view of every corporation and company in the country... except for the HMOs.)

[Deja Q]

9. Completely and utterly true.

[RB TexLa]

10. Yes, sure the union makes the decisions as to what cars to manufacture and market

In what world?

[baldguy]

11. Just like homeowners are responsible for the mortgage crisis

Because they determine how much the bank will lend to them, at what interest rate & term, they drew up the contracts on conditions favorable to themselves & forced the bank to sign.

[MrsBrady]

12. total BS

the workers do what management decides.

When I go to a job, I don't get to choose the company's direction.
It's just my job to do what is put in front of me.
Whoever said that is either an idiot or a repuke.

Heaven forbid that workers want a good wage, health care, and retirement.
How evil of them :sarcasm: