The right to work...Death of the Big Three

[mrdeeds]

The union will have no choice but make concessions. Unions did not believe plant closures were possible in the cases of Maple Leaf and Molson in Edmonton right down to the things were being dismantled. It's ludicrous. A crippling strike at Superstore was avoided here at the 11th hr. How Superstore can survive against Wal-Mart Supercentres must be pure magic. Unions are a monopoly of labour and we all know how monopolies distort the market. Not that I am a laissez-faire, I don't care advocate myself. Maybe we could apply an incomes policy to unionized labour?

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by TimSJ

Gov't can't afford to let these huys fail. 1 in 7 jobs in the US and 1 in 5 jobs in Canada are a result of the Auto industry. It would cost them a lot more if they all closed up shop.

Sure they can. If any of the big three fails, the sales they would have had would slide over to another manufacturer, who would then be required to increase production to meet new demand. i.e.: open new plants, hire more workers.

Certainly it would hurt pretty bad in the short term, but as Transplant's link above shows, letting one or all of the Big 3 fail wouldn't be a bad thing in the long run.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Okay UAW don't make concessions, and then you'll all be out of jobs because the company will go bankrupt.

For some reason, that didn't seem to cross their minds.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

They have a sharty product that no one wants and ridiculous labour costs. Their competitors even charge more for their products and still outsell them (specifically the civic). I'm all for "saving them" but something needs to be done about their business model, this money needs to come with strings.

Ah yes, but what strings do you anticipate a pro-labor Obama administration to give for bailout money? My guess would be that the money would be attached to forcing them to continue to overpay for labor and to avoid layoffs in exchange for way more restrictions and tariffs on imported cars (Lookup autopact agreements of the 1970s and 80s). Net result is the taxpayer picks up the tab for the short-term operating cash shortfall of the big three, and then the consumer pays the long-term tab in perpetuity regardless of which car brand they buy (Import or export due to tariffs).

And for what? The priviledge of having inefficient domestically owned businesses paying a select collection of high school graduates as if they worked in higher skilled, more educationally inclined professions. A side-effect of this would be lower quality and even more out of touch vehicle offerings from the big three as their operating environment within North America would be far less competative. We've been here before, anyone who owned/owns a typical car built by the big three in the 1980s knows exactly what I'm talking about.

[Table 5]

If this was 3-4 years ago, I would be right there with you guys. Let GM and it's bloated unions rot. But I'm not convinced at a time like this, the economy can handle another brutal shockwave of this sort of news. Half of this crisis is about confidence, and this would be like finding out your wife is cheating on you....with your dad.

[Phanuthier]

Looks like Ford is selling some liquid assets to raise money to pay the bills

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...de0&refer=asia

zoom zoom

[TimSJ]

GM announced yesterday that they are going to delay paying dealers incentive dollars to conserv cash.. This is the $1,500 signing bonus, meeting volume bonuses etc.. not good for the dealers who depend on this money

[Table 5]

The Canadian Auto Workers Union won't accept job cuts.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...w&refer=canada

we'll see about that.

[Resolute 14]

The CAW/UAW is easily the biggest reason why the big 3 need to fail.

Unions suck.

[mykalberta]

If I was the US, I would offer a package but have it based on that in 6 years, 50% of all vehicles produced have to be Electric. You should be able to sell that as the following for the fat cats in Congress and the Senate:

Job saver for the rust belt states
Environmental incentive for the greenaholic states
Anti Terrorism legislation for the "cold dead hand" states
Wealth generation for those few states that dont fit into the above.

[Table 5]

So what's the impact to Calgary if the Big 3 dies or there is a major bailout condition to switch to non-oil guzzling cars?

[CaptainCrunch]

I think there needs to be some seperation here.

Yes everyone has the right to work, there's no question about that. However its the ability to work thats going to be threatened.

Nobody neccessarily has the right to work for 70 dollars an hour in a industry that is being killed by the current global threat of recession. The U.S. automotive industry is bloated, and inefficient, and its arrogant as well. They are learning the same lessons now that they had to learn during the oil crisis in the 70's when they were building big gass guzzlers while the Asian car companies were building tiny gas efficient cars.

Right now the only place that the automotive industry can logically cut is in its manufacturing and logistics arms. If people aren't going to buy cars then those 40, 50, 60, dollar per hour workers have to go, and those outlying manufacturing plants have to go. For the most part the Canadian Manufacturers are probably going to have to go because Ford, GM etc are American Companies first and if they have to poop on the Canadian employment rate to save their own then they will without hesitation.

Someone mentioned above that the destruction of the auto industry in the U.S. is a death knell for the U.S. economy because of confidence, and he's correct, and the government will step in to save them, if the Auto industry takes significant steps to save itself.

The Unions, and especially CAW seem to have a real muddled view of modern day reccession economics. By refusing to even talk about pay or benefits cuts, they're effectively backing the auto industry into a corner where they just might say screw Canada, they're union is impossible to deal with.

And if Canadian manufacturing gets hit its going to ripple right across all sectors of Canadian Business, and we will be pulled kicking and screaming into the same hole that all of the other nations in the world are facing no matter what our banking industry is doing.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Table 5

So what's the impact to Calgary if the Big 3 dies or there is a major bailout condition to switch to non-oil guzzling cars?

We sell our oil else where. Whose exports are going to be hurt more, a neighbour connected by land who transports oil via pipelines, or countries who transport oil via tankers and live in a very hostile region towards the US.

Also, there will be plenty of gas vechicles in the US to sell our oil to.

[ok, ok,....I get it]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Well the UAW has been making concessions so I don't see how we can throw all the blame on the workers.
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=964043


Maybe if they built a better product or got better reviews because for the last number of years it's been cool to lambaste N. American cars and from my experience it isn't called for. If we continue to buy only foreign goods, we deserve it when our economy goes in the tank.

Sometimes in life we have to hold our noses and ante up and this bail out is one of those times.

I believe that all "imports" currently sold in NA are made here, Toyota, Nissan and Honda all have plants in NA.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by ok, ok,....I get it

I believe that all "imports" currently sold in NA are made here, Toyota, Nissan and Honda all have plants in NA.

Some, but definitely not all.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by ok, ok,....I get it

I believe that all "imports" currently sold in NA are made here, Toyota, Nissan and Honda all have plants in NA.

Depends on the model. Lots of manufacturers still make some/most models in their 'home' country. Companies like VW use Mexico as their NA manufacturing base.

[Bobblehead]

Honda and Toyota are worried about their NA operations if the Big 3 go down.

McGuinty says both Japanese automakers are worried that the collapse of one of the Big Three will produce "supplier shock."

He says they fear companies who supply parts to the Big Three would not be able to sustain themselves if one failed.

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/538940

BTW, the Civic is made in Alliston Ont.

Honda Canada manufactures
the Honda Ridgeline and Civic sedan and coupe, and the Acura CSX and MDX at
its two plants in Alliston, Ontario, and has produces fuel-efficient
4-cylinder engines at its new engine plant in Alliston.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/a.../03/c4166.html

[browna]

The CBS news was on last night, the big 3 employ 249K employees....133K GM.

As touched on above, the hundreds of parts suppliers to the big 3 employ about 2.3 million people. Of course, those part suppliers, although doing the majority of the work for the Big 3, also make various parts and supply to each of the car manufactuers in the US. And if those suppliers go under or severely cutback, each and every manufacturer will be affected.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by browna

The CBS news was on last night, the big 3 employ 249K employees....133K GM.

As touched on above, the hundreds of parts suppliers to the big 3 employ about 2.3 million people. Of course, those part suppliers, although doing the majority of the work for the Big 3, also make various parts and supply to each of the car manufactuers in the US. And if those suppliers go under or severely cutback, each and every manufacturer will be affected.

You are looking at almost 500,000 people(Canada+USA) that will be affected if the big three disappear completely. The thing is...a bailout will only prolong the agony. The best scenario is the file for bankruptcy and then go through (can't think of the word now)...fixing.... With likely one of the big three (Chrysler?) ending up on the garbage heap of history. 4-5 years of pain with likely a new vibrant auto industry across the great lakes.

Just put it this way....as if there WON'T be an auto industry in the USA....sorry NOT. Too big a market and the big three will leave a huge vacuum. Easily filled....hopefully with something much, much better than we have seen over the past 20-30 years.

[Phanuthier]

You know, all this talk about the jobs being lost and whatnot - maybe I'm missing something here, but if there's no bailout, can't/won't companies like Toyota and Ford just acquire portions of GM, Chrystler and Ford super cheap (ala JPM buying WaMu; BoA buying ML, super cheap) as well as their facilities? Rather then have their fixed assets sitting around doing nothing, they'll probably get sold to another car company to use, and with that, skilled labour will be acquired as well. (It might require a government loan - I wonder what happened to that $700B anyways?) Sure the $30 per hour floor sweepers will be out of a job, but skill workers will probably should be able to find jobs in the new environment, no? Plus, under new management (Toyota, Honda, et al) those UAW contracts get replaced by new ones that are, lets say... a little more capatalist.

Or if the feds don't want all of them in the tank, maybe save one, consolidate what you can of the big 3 into 1, and sell the rest of the assets to the overseas car manufacturers. Ford seems to have assets that they are selling to raise capital, maybe they'll survive. Buh-bye, GM - good riddance.