The Fassy Fassy Fassy Posse’ – rollin out
This is part three in the Posse’ Saga -
“Unionize it and I will industrialize It”
Today we look at the American Auto Co’s and their Ganglike Mentality toward the American Workers and the American Consumers.
Many of you remember when Chrysler went bankrupt and had to be bailed out in the 1980’s. it was the strong hand of auto mafioso Lee Iacocca who manuvered that lane change.
we believe that if the American Auto Workers are the new lumpen prolateriat then who is the new Lenin ? must be Ron Gettelfinger. (in most circles as “Ghetto-finga”; yeah two snaps up for that one twan)
The UAW President of Late, Ron Gellelfinger; has managed to keep the US autoworkers living a decent life. Most with a well above average wage. their perks and bennes are in the top drawer of all industrys pay-outs. we know this personally, having grown up in a generation of factory rats; as they refer to themselves in motown.
take a few minutes and check out these stories and figure out for yourself who is the real culprit in this case, because we side with the Factory Rats; they don’t get golden parachutes, or dividends at the end of the day.
What Say You Ricky Poo leader of the Auto Co FASSY Posses’ ?
WE, the consumers and the workers really want to know, and for the record so does the american economy. if anyone should be giving back it should be the Heads of these Fassy Companies who are blaming the american consumers for their Fassiness. FASSY !
like we said before we believe the american auto companies are headed by a buncha Old Incompetent FASSIES !
Now Tek Weh Yuh Selves Auto Company Fassies, we done it.
Coming soon: A massive Kia manufacturing plant is going up in West Point, Ga. It aims to turn out its first model in about a year, and some 43,000 people applied for 2,600 positions.
Ace Aerial
America’s ‘other’ auto industry
In the South, host to foreign-owned plants, there is little sympathy held for Detroit.
By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the December 5, 2008 edition
West Point, Ga. – The US auto industry is throwing bolts, but here in Georgia’s Chattahoochee Valley a South Korean car company is building a massive new manufacturing plant along the new Kia Parkway, replacing abandoned textile mills. The recently opened Korean BBQ House now vies for customers with Roger’s Pit-Cooked Bar-B-Que. And in an indication of just how welcome Kia’s nonunion jobs are, some 43,000 people applied for 2,600 positions – with starting wages of $17 an hour – as the plant gears up to turn out its first model next November.
The expansion of this “other” auto industry – one that’s foreign-owned, nonunion, and based largely in the South – stands in stark contrast to this week’s dire reports from America’s own Big Three, whose CEOs laid out plans for a dramatic downsizing before traveling to Washington to plead for $34 billion in federal aid.
Two-thirds of “foreign imports” are, in fact, built in the United States in nonunion shops, where it costs at least $2,000 less in labor to build each vehicle.
Critics charge that the Japanese, Korean, and German auto companies are taking advantage of desperate communities and a longstanding distrust of unions in the South. But among people in West Point, Ga., the vision of a foreign-owned Southern car industry standing on its own two feet while Detroit teeters comes down to this: the worth of a day’s work, and the role – or nonrole – of unions like the United Auto Workers (UAW).
“Workers [in the South] understand that in order for them to have a job these companies have got to make money, because if they don’t, they’re not going to have a job,” says Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R), who represents this river city in Congress and who could be asked as soon as next week to vote on a bailout to keep Chrysler and General Motors afloat. “That’s the first issue [Detroit auto executives] need to address before they come to Congress asking for a bailout or a loan or whatever it is,” he says in a phone interview.
Around the South and especially here on Interstate 85 – nicknamed the “autobahn” for the prevalence of foreign-owned car plants along its stretch – the manufacture of foreign vehicles has jumped 450 percent since 1986. While the Big Three have shed more than 600,000 jobs since 1980, foreign automakers have created about 35,000 jobs in the same period.
The gap between union and nonunion compensation is big: Total benefits put union workers at $36.34 per hour compared with $25.65 per hour. The Big Three’s “legacy costs,” some economists say, push UAW members’ total compensation much higher. That gap, moreover, figures into Southern residents’ views on Detroit’s worthiness to be rescued from the brink of bankruptcy.
“If you’re making $60 or $70 an hour, I can see how you don’t want to work for $20,” says West Point barber Dewey Rayley, who reports that most of his customers look unfavorably on a federal bailout for the American auto companies. “But that’s the thing: What makes you think it’s worth so much just to build a car?”
The UAW, for its part, has tried to unionize the international plants in the South, to no avail. Its membership is down 17 percent from 2007, to 464,910 – the lowest since the Great Depression.
With the stakes rising, the once tough-minded union is now “a shadow of its former self,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy in Santa Barbara, Calif.
On Wednesday, UAW head Ron Gettelfinger said the union will discontinue a controversial jobs bank – a kind of private unemployment program – and allow the Big Three to postpone payments into a healthcare trust for workers. It’s the second offer to reopen contract negotiations in three years.
The UAW concession “is significant and unprecedented,” says Harley Shaiken, an expert on labor and the global economy at the University of California, Berkeley. “The fact that the union is willing to jettison [the job bank] shows that they want to clear the political air for a reasoned discussion on why the industry survival is important to the entire economy.”
A prevalent right-to-work philosophy isn’t the only reason foreign companies like Toyota have located plants in the South. There’s also the proximity to a car-loving region with little mass transit and a population that totals that of the Midwest and New England combined. Moreover, the Southern autoworkers are fairly young, meaning few qualify for pensions. General Motors, for instance, supports 400,000 retirees; Toyota supports 700.
While Detroit and the UAW are locked in what Mr. Lichtenstein calls a “failed marriage,” the Asian firms, in particular, have flirted effectively with a South big on states’ rights and individual liberties. With different work styles and no union rules with which to comply, foreign-car companies can be more flexible and responsive to customers – though union shops get top marks on seven of eight quality and productivity standards. Unlike in the Detroit-owned plants, workers at foreign-owned facilities eat in the same cafeterias as the brass – a kind of egalitarian mind-set that fits well with Southern social graces, leaving workers few incentives to unionize.
“The auto industry has for the most part transformed the South’s economy, and it’s because you’re empowering [workers],” says Mike Randle, editor of Southern Business and Development magazine in Mountain Brook, Ala. “If you go to any of these foreign auto plants in the South, it looks like a rural high school parking lot – just a bunch of kids. Where are these young men or women going to get a job with a year of community college [experience]? Wal-Mart? Now they’re starting at $17 an hour, and we’re talking about thousands and thousands of jobs.”
But there are troubling implications, too. Like some of the old textile-mill magnates, a Honda plant in Alabama has resisted unionization efforts, telling workers that if they joined a union the plant’s operations would radically change – a comment some workers interpreted (wrongly, says a Honda spokesman) as a veiled threat to close up shop. Last year, Toyota in Georgetown, Ky., fired two workers for releasing an internal document that discussed lowering wages. The demise of one or more of the big US automakers stands to benefit the foreign companies, as would the continued weakening of the UAW, whose existence indirectly boosts nonunion wages. [Editor's note: The original text miscast Honda's actual statements to workers.]
Labor historians note that President Franklin Roosevelt helped to raise wages across the board to get the US out of the Great Depression. Today, they say, many conservative Democrats and Republicans from the South, like Representative Westmoreland, are lobbying for the opposite to rescue Detroit.
“If and when the UAW is destroyed, what will happen to the transplants, like the Toyota plant in Kentucky and this new Kia plant, is that these companies will start offering Wal-Mart wages,” says Lichtenstein.
Even here in West Point, where a new interstate exchange the state built for Kia opens Dec. 10, not all is well. Retired textile worker Jim McKee frets that “some of the cultural changes like the [Korean] restaurants are shocking and worrying to a lot of people.”
What’s more, Detroit may be a competitor, but most people in West Point drive Buicks, Chevys, and Fords. “I’m a Buick man, but, who knows, I might be buying a Kia soon,” says Harris Nader, who owns an “old-time” music shop in West Point.
And not everyone blames the unions. The problem is “that the executives with these companies made mistakes down through the years in not producing fuel-efficient cars, not what the union was being paid,” says Don Gilliam, a West Point city councilor. “Now it’s essential that you give them help, not because of their mistakes, but for the sake of the general economy.”
Downturn Will Test Obama’s Vision for an Energy-Efficient Auto Industry
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
Published: December 20, 2008
DETROIT — President-elect Barack Obama leveled a stern warning at General Motors and Chrysler last week after the federal government promised them billions to help them survive: “The auto companies must not squander this chance to reform bad management practices.”
Barack Obama addresses the Detroit Economic Club in May 2007.
Related
Obama Address to the Detroit Economic Club (May 2007) (YouTube.com) Micheline Maynard on the Summer Breakfast Show (mp3)
Once he takes office, the bailout will give him a tool to prod the industry to change, but it will also test his resolve as he pushes it in new directions.
Mr. Obama, after all, has been thinking out loud about the future of the American automobile industry for years, well before his presidential campaign began. He co-sponsored two bills in 2006, during his second year as a United States senator — one to raise fuel economy standards, and the other to encourage the use of alternative fuels.
His writings and speeches on the auto industry suggest a keen interest in finding ways, including new technology, to improve the fuel efficiency of the cars and trucks that Americans drive.
But with Detroit in a fragile financial state, it is unclear how many compromises he will have to make in pursuing his agenda for the auto industry, as he juggles other priorities like providing a stimulus program for the broader economy. The United Automobile Workers union, which backed Mr. Obama, will want a say in the changes he envisions for the automakers.
And the car companies, which have long lead times to develop products, will need sales of big trucks and sport utility vehicles, which may pick up again as gas prices fall, to bring in much-needed revenue.
By all accounts, Mr. Obama’s personal interest in the industry stems from his interest in environmental issues, and he has a ready resource about how the industry operates in Martin Nesbitt, a close friend who worked in financial planning at G.M.
Mr. Obama delivered his clearest prescription to the automobile industry in May 2007, when he appeared at Cobo Convention Center in downtown Detroit before an audience of 2,000 auto industry executives.
In a speech to the Economic Club of Detroit, Mr. Obama said the Big Three had done little to lessen the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and needed to improve their vehicles’ fuel efficiency.
“The auto industry’s refusal to act for so long has left it mired in a predicament for which there is no easy way out,” Mr. Obama said.
He added, “For years, while foreign competitors were investing in more fuel-efficient technology for their vehicles, American automakers were spending their time investing in bigger, faster cars. And whenever an attempt was made to raise our fuel efficiency standards, the auto companies would lobby furiously against it.”
He suggested initiatives similar to the legislation he had introduced in Congress, and which he emphasized in his campaign. They included a 4 percent annual increase in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, equal to about one mile per gallon a year, and incentives for the companies to develop more fuel-efficient cars.
Mr. Obama said he would provide up to $3 billion to Detroit auto companies and their suppliers to retool their factories in order to produce smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Still, with gasoline prices falling again, it is unclear whether consumer demand will shift so dramatically to small cars.
Congress later included up to $25 billion for the companies for the retooling. General Motors and Chrysler initially tried to tap that money for their depleted cash reserves, before receiving assistance from the Bush administration.
Environmentalists say the speech in Detroit was a sign of commitment to prodding the auto companies to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.
“I think he gets it,” said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign for the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington consumer advocacy group. “The speech at Econ Club was a brave one, but a thoughtful one.”
Mr. Obama, who received standing ovations at the beginning and conclusion of his speech, said he wanted to be blunt with the Detroit companies on their home turf.
“I’m making this proposal here today because I don’t believe in making proposals in California and giving a different speech in Michigan,” he said. His goal was “not to destroy the industry, but to help bring it into the 21st century,” he said.
A year earlier, in his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama wrote that “fuel-efficient cars and alternative fuels like E85, a fuel formulated with 85% ethanol, represent the future of the auto industry. It is a future American car companies can attain if we start making some tough choices now.”
He also did not spare the U.A.W. from criticism.
“For years,” Mr. Obama wrote, “U.S. automakers and the U.A.W. have resisted higher fuel-efficiency standards because retooling costs money, and Detroit is already struggling under huge retiree health-care costs and stiff competition.”
With Detroit in crisis, there is little room for hesitation after Mr. Obama reaches office.
His Treasury Department will have to assess whether the union and the companies have met the requirements of the loans given them by the Bush administration, which legal experts say Mr. Obama could easily amend.
But he also has said that he wants to protect American jobs.
Soon after President Bush finished announcing the terms of the $17.4 billion in assistance for the auto companies on Friday, the U.A.W. union was calling on Mr. Obama, for whom they rallied support in important Midwestern states, to revise it.
They wanted him to discard a requirement that auto workers agree to wage and benefit concessions that would bring their compensation in line with that paid nonunion workers.
Mr. Obama was advised in the bailout discussions by a former Federal Reserve chairman, Paul A. Volcker, who was at the Fed when Congress approved assistance to Chrysler in 1979; Austan Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago; and Joshua Steiner, a former Treasury official with a background in restructuring.
Brian Johnson, a veteran industry analyst with Barclays Capital, said the outgoing Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., had “tied up this money with some string.” He added that the “U.A.W. is going to request it to be untied, and the question is whether Obama will untie the string.”
On Friday, Mr. Obama reiterated in a statement that all parties in the industry should have to give up something so the auto companies could revive and change.
“There are going to be some painful steps that have to be taken,” he said later at a news conference.
No matter the steps Mr. Obama takes, he is likely to seek a range of opinions. That is what happened in June 2006, when he invited a group of environmental leaders to meet with him to discuss legislation that would increase fuel economy.
At the time, none at the meeting knew that Mr. Obama planned a presidential bid, said Mr. Becker, who was then representing the Sierra Club.
He said that Mr. Obama told them: “If you guys think this is helpful, then I want to go ahead and push this. But if you don’t think it’s helpful, I’ll drop it. I don’t have to do this.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Becker, a longtime critic of Detroit’s environmental policies, said he did not believe that Mr. Obama would force the car companies to submit to drastic measures.
“I don’t think they need to be afraid of Obama. He’s not going to say ‘by next Tuesday, everything has to be 40 miles per gallon,’ ” Mr. Becker said. “But in 10 years? Maybe.”
John McCallum on Monday September 29, 2008.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
TORONTO — Word that the federal and Ontario governments will provide the struggling auto sector with $4 billion in emergency loans was blasted by opposition critics and was lauded by industry and union spokesmen.
Liberal MP John McCallum, speaking Sunday on CTV’s “Question Period,” agreed aid is necessary but criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government for being late to the table and offering few details of the federal package announced on the weekend.
He expressed concern the deal may not do enough to maintain Canadian jobs.
The announcement Saturday by Harper and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty in Toronto came a day after President George W. Bush offered US$17.4-billion in emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler. Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty had promised Canada would offer 20 per cent of the U.S. funding, reflecting the scale of the country’s role in the North American auto industry.
McCallum said: “If we put up 20 per cent of the money, we should have a guarantee that Canada has 20 per cent of the production and the jobs.”
“There’s some sort of production guarantee – I don’t know if it has teeth – but my understanding is there’s no guarantee whatsoever for Canadian jobs … I don’t think this government has negotiated this very well.”
Thomas Mulcair, deputy NDP leader and party finance critic, told CTV he also was dismayed at a lack of precision in the weekend announcement.
“We don’t know what’s exactly in this deal… All this is being done on the back of an envelope at a press conference … parliamentarians who are responsible for looking at taxpayers’ money haven’t had a chance to look at the details of the deal.”
But Conservative backbencher Rick Dykstra, whose St. Catharines, Ont., riding includes many auto workers, told “Question Period” the aid could be withdrawn if the auto companies don’t come through with their promised strategic plans by the end of March.
He later pulled back from that assertion and indicated he doesn’t expect that kind of problem to arise.
But the March deadline does mean the companies are “going to have to work very hard over the next 90 days,” said Dykstra.
GM Canada said Saturday the loan provided “a welcome financial bridge at this critical time.”
“The support announced today sends a significant signal of stability in the face of the economic and credit challenges faced by Canada’s auto sector,” said Arturo Elias, president of GM’s Canadian operations.
Chrysler Canada said the funds will ensure it has enough money to continue its restructuring and thanked the governments for “their understanding of the situation and their swift reaction.”
Aid for Ford of Canada wasn’t announced as part of the aid package but that company never asked for a loan, just a line of credit to draw upon if required.
The company said it welcomes the government’s plan to support the auto credit market because “Canadian consumers deserve access to affordable loans and leases when shopping for a new vehicle.”
Richard Gauthier, president of the Canadian Automobile Dealers’ Association, welcomed the package, saying: “It is a necessary step on the part of both the provincial and federal government to stabilize the manufacturing sector in Canada because of the economic effect.”
Failure to have taken action “would be devastating” for the entire country, Gauthier said.
But he said something must be done to solve the “liquidity issue.”
He said Canada’s 3,500 auto dealers are feeling the squeeze and not able to gain access to funds they need to run their businesses.
Ontario’s new car dealers called Sunday for three or six month tax rebates to drive up sales of domestic and foreign vehicles.
The tax break would increase the number of customers visiting showrooms and help stimulate sales of new vehicles, the Ontario Automobile Dealer Association said.
“The Ontario government instituted a similar and very successful tax rebate in the 1980 Ontario budget in order to move 1979 vehicles,” Geoff Wilkinson, executive director of the OADA, said in a statement. “Showroom traffic improved immediately and more than 17,500 rebates resulted.”
Harper’s statement was applauded by Canadian Auto Workers president Ken Lewenza, who said the goal to maintain current production share in Canada was key.
He declined to speculate on how many job losses may be coming, saying only that it was clear the industry was going to do some consolidation and “there’s going to be some painful decisions being made.”
“I certainly got the message from Mr. Harper and Mr. McGuinty that all stakeholders must play a significant role in terms of turning the companies around,” Lewenza said shortly after the announcement was made.
“But we would not take direct responsibility that the crisis we’re in today is a direct result of our wage and benefit packages because it is not.”
Ontario NDP Leader Howard Hampton said he would like to see the government take some shares in the companies in return for the loans.
“If, worst case scenario happens and one of these companies goes under, you’ll want some assets.”
The plan will provide General Motors Canada with loans of up to $3 billion and Chrysler Canada will receive up to $1 billion.
The companies will get the money in three instalments, with the first portion coming Dec. 29.
Unlike the American plan, the Canadian aid will also extend additional account-receivable insurance coverage for automotive suppliers and create a new facility support access to credit to consumers.
McGuinty said Ontario will provide $1.3 billion of the total emergency loans package to General Motors and Chrysler.
Harper warned the announcement “is not a blank cheque” for the industry, suggesting both the companies and their employees will have to make concessions.
While the government expects to recoup much of its investment, he added, “there is obviously money at risk here and there may well be more money at risk as we go forward.”
McGuinty said the funding will only be delivered after auto companies agree to meet conditions set by the governments – including a request that the parts suppliers get the money they are owed, that borrowers accept limits on executive compensation and that they provide the government with warrants for non-voting stock.
Bush, Obama Urge Auto Companies to Restructure
By VOA News
20 December 2008
President George W. Bush makes statement on automaker bailout plan at the White House, 19 Dec 2008
U.S. President George Bush and President-elect Barack Obama are urging automakers to swiftly draw up plans to make their companies viable, now that a newly-announced government loan will buy them time to do so.
In his weekly radio address Saturday, President Bush said his administration’s new loan program gives automakers three months to put restructuring plans in place.
Mr. Bush on Friday announced $13.4 billion in emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, with another four billion dollars becoming available in February. But the plan calls for concessions, including worker pay cuts and a cap on pay for executives.
Saturday, Canada announced it will provide $3.3 billion in emergency loans to ailing U.S. automakers that have subsidiaries in Canada.
President-elect Barack Obama during a news conference in Chicago, 11 Dec 2008
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Friday said auto companies will have to take “painful” steps to restructure their businesses. He also warned auto companies that the public’s patience with bad management is “running out.” Mr. Obama said auto workers should not bear the brunt of the industry’s restructuring.
The United Auto Workers’ Union criticized the White House plan, saying it unfairly singles out workers for pay cuts.
The companies have until March 31 to draw up restructuring plans or they will be forced to quickly repay the loans. Mr. Bush said if a company fails to come up with a plan to become profitable, the loan will provide time for the company to organize what he called an “orderly” bankruptcy to improve its chances of survival.
Richard Wagoner, the chief executive officer of the largest U.S. automaker, General Motors, said he is grateful for the government help and “highly confident” the company can meet the test. GM will get most of the loan money and Chrysler will get the rest. Ford officials applauded the decision to aid the industry, but said they do not yet need help.
U.S. automakers are reeling from the global recession, which has led to tightening credit, falling consumer demand, and the worst sales in decades. The situation is forcing Chrysler to close all 30 of its plants for at least a month, beginning Saturday.
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Tags: american auto co's. fassy, auto co bailouts, Barack Obama, rick wagoner
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