Auto sales plunge in face of $4 gas

[Cobol74]

I think that if I were an American I would not mind the UAW package of rewards too much if they delivered big time - you know, quality top notch, worked with management to keep the plants full, worked out the most efficient way to transfer production to a new model - that sort of thing - if just half of what spectre is tell us all is true they are in the brown stuff. It is really a new world out there and only joint action will work in the future. Now the trouble seems to be that the UAW is stuck in the 1970's and that the management are not managinging, and that the unions do not seem to have realised either - the unions need to look to the UK as how not to do it.

[argatoga]

I have no problem with auto workers being paid as much as are now if they did their job correctly. They don't and they are of a myopic mindset which is oblivious to the fact that if they keep producing crap the company they work for, as well as their jobs, will disappear.

[torrent_rider]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Guess you haven't been paying attention

Incorrect. Can you ever even be correct? Is that even possible? No, serisously, I havepointed out fact after fact and all you have done is moo out GOP talking points. Or, can you explain how hte UAW cost GM $2.5 BILLION in the FIAT debacle?

like most UAW drones, but nobody that's responded to you (that I can see) is a teenager and many are over 25.

Your physical age is not matched by you lack of any mental age. Maturity is not a measure of years on this planet but rather the quality of the years lived and the wisdom gained during the journey. Hey, you desperatley want to cling to some childish high school drama fan club crap and that is your preogative.

Also, way to go on ignoring our points about the UAW causing bad quality. GM's investment in Fiat did not cause overpaid UAW workers to improperly assemble merp's Corvette, Cobra or my Jeep.

I have never defended poor quality by UAW workers. Had YOU been paying attention, you'd have already seen that. But then again, you're just a kid with a weak ego that needs to be stroked by online people telling you just how wonderful you are while mooing out Republican anti-worker/anti-Middle Class talking points. I'm not sorry to tell you that this is not Special Ed class....and you're just not special.

[Spectre]

Here's an interesting video:

http://info.detnews.com/video/index.cfm?id=1189

This link is for a 3-minute video put together by the Detroit News about Ford's most efficient plant, which is in Brazil. The report ends by noting that Ford would like to build such a facility in the United States, but the UAW won't allow it.

Sooo... is it the management? Or is it the UAW?

[torrent_rider]

And here is some more interesting information:

http://media.ford.com/article_displa...ticle_id=22382

You all recall the videos posted here before about how FORD management admits on camera their F-ups and how they are addressing them. D'oh! Those pesky executives admitting that it was management screwups that were hurting the company. Poor wittle GOP dogma getting run over by a new Focus.....Priceless.

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by torrent_rider

Incorrect. Can you ever even be correct? Is that even possible? No, serisously, I havepointed out fact after fact and all you have done is moo out GOP talking points.

You want facts? Here's some facts:

http://www.nrtw.org/blog/intimidation-real-and-imagined

And the UAW has a particularly dubious history when it comes to actual threats and intimidation against employees:

* Responding to actual threats, the National Right to Work Foundation hired round-the-clock private security guards for Thomas Built Bus employee Jeff Ward who was targeted for opposing the UAW’s unionization tactics at his facility.
* At a Freightliner facility in Gaffney South Carolina UAW militants threatened employee Mike Ivey that “things are gonna get ugly” if he didn’t stop opposing UAW organizers.
* In another case the UAW was forced to settle a lawsuit filed against it for its role in a violence campaign against workers at a Virginia plant who refused to walk off the job during a union-ordered strike. A lawsuit in that case charged several union militants with civil conspiracy and other counts for making death threats, shooting out windows, sending obscene mail, acts of stalking, theft of property, and harassing workers on the job to coerce them into quitting their jobs. And in a particularly vivid image of UAW intimidation, 55-year old Sucheng Huang was greeted early one morning with a bloody severed cows head on the hood of her car.

You want to defend your precious union's behavior here?

Originally Posted by torrent_rider

And here is some more interesting information:

http://media.ford.com/article_displa...ticle_id=22382

You all recall the videos posted here before about how FORD management admits on camera their F-ups and how they are addressing them. D'oh! Those pesky executives admitting that it was management screwups that were hurting the company. Poor wittle GOP dogma getting run over by a new Focus.....Priceless.

Yup, and as I've commented before and elsewhere... they've screwed up early and often. But when management does get its act together and brings over good designs (Mondeo, Focus), the UAW screws them over and slaps them together.

Thanks to the UAW, one of the best small cars in Europe, the Ford Focus, is THE MOST RECALLED CAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

[Cobol74]

Management manage - which includes, most particularly, the employees. If they are not managing them then management may as well pack up and go home.

On a larger view "do I think that the strategies are there to make Ford successful?" then yes; but as you yourself posted they can not carry out the transformation. Now the absolute reason is because they have given over their right to manage to the UAW, now they should not have done that.

If I were a stock holder I would be so pissed off I can not tell you.

Goes back to the discussion as for whom QA inspectors work - they should only work for the company so should be non union and management grade.

[thedguy]

Originally Posted by torrent_rider

And here is some more interesting information:

http://media.ford.com/article_displa...ticle_id=22382

You all recall the videos posted here before about how FORD management admits on camera their F-ups and how they are addressing them. D'oh! Those pesky executives admitting that it was management screwups that were hurting the company. Poor wittle GOP dogma getting run over by a new Focus.....Priceless.

You seem to be ignoring one simple fact... We aren't solely blaming the UAW, we are well aware that it was managements horrible idea to come up with the Cimarron, Mustang II, and the 4/6/8 v8 engine.

Originally Posted by Spectre

You want facts? Here's some facts:

http://www.nrtw.org/blog/intimidation-real-and-imagined

You want to defend your precious union's behavior here?

Yup, and as I've commented before and elsewhere... they've screwed up early and often. But when management does get its act together and brings over good designs (Mondeo, Focus), the UAW screws them over and slaps them together.

Thanks to the UAW, one of the best small cars in Europe, the Ford Focus, is THE MOST RECALLED CAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

another link they had on there that caught my eye was bout a 16 year old forced to pay up dues or be fired at an Albertsons. Several of my friends had the exact same problem in school, and because of their age they couldn't take advantage of the unions services anyway.

[Cobol74]

That is what to build which is a whole different discussion and I think actually the US companies know what to do just that the UAW will not let them do it, which is kinda what I have been trying to say - any way just look to the UK, that is where you will be unless you get your management/UAW fingers out IMHO.

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by Cobol74

That is what to build which is a whole different discussion and I think actually the US companies know what to do just that the UAW will not let them do it, which is kinda what I have been trying to say - any way just look to the UK, that is where you will be unless you get your management/UAW fingers out IMHO.

Oh, the US unions aren't that smart.

They're looking at the UK as an example of how it *should* be done.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d..._united_front/

Britain's biggest union -- UNITE -- is joining forces with United Steelworkers.

[torrent_rider]

Originally Posted by thedguy

You seem to be ignoring one simple fact... We aren't solely blaming the UAW, we are well aware that it was managements horrible idea to come up with the Cimarron, Mustang II, and the 4/6/8 v8 engine.

What's this "we" stuff? spectre is hell bent on pinning ALL the blame for Detroit's woes on the UAW. That is simply not a fact of history. Any fair minded person knows that the UAW has not helped matters between the 1970s-1990s and do deserve some legitimate blame. I have been clear about that from the start. However, some of your compatriots refuse to be as fair minded as you.

another link they had on there that caught my eye was bout a 16 year old forced to pay up dues or be fired at an Albertsons. Several of my friends had the exact same problem in school, and because of their age they couldn't take advantage of the unions services anyway.

My dad's union screwed him on his retirement, so I'm no mindless cheerleading union drone. Some of the NEA pisses me off and I'm no fan of the NFT. However, like cobl74 says above;

Management manage - which includes, most particularly, the employees. If they are not managing them then management may as well pack up and go home.

The UAW didn't force Ford to buy Jag/Land Rover/Volvo. The UAW didn't force GM to make the Aztek and crappy designs and inefficient cars since the 1973 oil embargo. The UAW didn't force GM to lose billions to FIAT. the UAW didn't force Chrysler's CEO to panic and sell out to Daimler-Benz (I read Iacoccas recent book about leadership and its one hell of a book).

Sure, the UAW has hurt domestic sales due to poor quality, but that pales in comparison to the near-bankrupting stupid decisions by management. Management deserves the lion's share and this is just being intellectually honest. spectre and his kind simply refuse to be honest about Detroit.

--

Originally Posted by Cobol74

Goes back to the discussion as for whom QA inspectors work - they should only work for the company so should be non union and management grade.

A damned sensible idea.

[argatoga]

Ugh another post blatantly ignoring the evidence brought up, and going on some paranoid political agenda.

Thank god it's the last one he will post.

[Vette Boss]

Farewell to torrent_rider, how little we knew ye. And yet, we didn't want to.

[Labcoatguy]

Originally Posted by Labcoatguy

Oh man...personal attacks, spewing a manifesto instead of actual, I dunno, debate, do I sense a banhammer coming soon?

I so called it!