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#382124 - 12/19/08 11:05 AM
$17,400,000,000
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Bush Approves $17.4 Billion Auto Bailout WASHINGTON — President Bush announced $13.4 billion in emergency loans on Friday to prevent the collapse of General Motors and Chrysler, and said another $4 billion would be available for the hobbled automakers in February. The entire bailout is conditioned on the companies undertaking sweeping reorganizations to show that they can return to profitability. The loans, as G.M. and Chrysler teeter on the brink of insolvency, essentially throw the companies a lifeline from the taxpayers that will keep them afloat until March 31. At that point, the Obama administration will determine if the automakers are meeting the conditions of the loans and will continue to receive government aid or must repay the loans and face bankruptcy. STORY
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#382125 - 12/19/08 10:52 PM
Re: $17,400,000,000
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Porn Jesus
Registered: 01/07/06
Posts: 4268
Loc: Portland
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Is anyone else reading "Shock Doctrine"?
I wonder if the "conditions" involve a further reduction of labor rights/wages?
Because, after all, it is their fault...
_________________________
"My people (the real Americans- descended from the original Angle-Saxon pioneers)"-Coke S.
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#382127 - 12/20/08 05:43 AM
Re: $17,400,000,000
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Porn Jesus
Registered: 12/28/07
Posts: 4856
Loc: The 4th International
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Although coming from a different starting point as k1ng, I arrive at the same conclusion regarding the wages.
You can try to re-structure the automotive industry without cutting wages, but that would be a very short-term solution. Wages are still a large part of the costs. Trying to improve your profitability without doing something about your biggest cost factor is plain ignorant.
_________________________
The only thing you got that I want, is your suffering.
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#382130 - 12/20/08 10:01 AM
Re: $17,400,000,000
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Quote:
Yeah, American workers are stupid and lazy. Japanese industrialists should determine how we live.
-Chuck, Vegetarian fanboy
'Cause I think *we've seen that movie too.....
Gung Ho, 1986 Ron Howard film
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#382131 - 12/20/08 10:29 AM
Re: $17,400,000,000
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Gag Factor Guru
Porn Jesus
Registered: 07/15/05
Posts: 5290
Loc: Dayton
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UAW sacrifices look to some like surrender
Excerpts:
The language of the loan agreement sets specific "restructuring targets" that General Motors and Chrysler must use their "best efforts" to meet. Compensation must be made "equal" to the nonunion workers, and work rules must be "competitive" with those at nonunion plants. The companies also must reduce compensation to workers who have been laid off — the jobs bank and at least half of the company's payments into retiree health care must be made in stock, not cash. If the companies fall short of those targets, they are required to explain why.
The payment in stock makes the health fund more risky. The wage concessions could force average wages down to $24 an hour from $28 an hour, analysts said.
/Excerpts
In my business, in this town, I am in frequent contact with both union and contracted auto workers. My co-worker is a former UAW worker, she gets highest marks for abilities and work ethics. A lot of both technical and skilled labor goes into cars. Most assembly line jobs have been outsourced or replaced by robots. I would gladly accept a former auto union worker to be my co-worker again.
This is not the union workers' fault. That's bullshit, plain and simple. Short sighted management and financial meltdown is to blame.
-Chuck, Vegetarian fanboy
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#382132 - 12/20/08 11:33 AM
Re: $17,400,000,000
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Porn Icon
Registered: 02/04/05
Posts: 3499
Loc: The Dirty: 480
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Meanwhile, Jimmy Hoffa is unable to roll in his poured concrete grave.
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#382133 - 12/20/08 03:44 PM
Re: $17,400,000,000
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Porn Jesus
Registered: 12/28/07
Posts: 4856
Loc: The 4th International
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Chuck wrote: Quote:
...This is not the union workers' fault. That's bullshit, plain and simple. Short sighted management and financial meltdown is to blame.
I don't know who stated that this whole shitstorm in the automotive industry is the union workers' fault, but it surely wasn't me.
If you're looking to blame some group of people, look at top and middle management of 'The Big 3'. And I guess that the union board hasn't been paying enough attention either.
However, the solution has to come from both sides: the assembly line and the overhead (HQ, R&D, etc.). It would be a nice start to cut the 'labor' costs of the top 10 percent at GM with, for example, 25 percent. That would make a 5 percent cut at the assembly line a little more tolerable.
It might also pay off to check the efficiency levels of the desk jockeys just above the production workers.
_________________________
The only thing you got that I want, is your suffering.
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#382134 - 12/28/08 10:44 PM
Re: $17,400,000,000
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Porn Jesus
Registered: 03/22/06
Posts: 6557
Loc: 2004 - the glory days
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those dumbfuck inept ceo/cfo/whatever-o over paid stuffed suits were embarrassed by congress into giving up their private jets last month so maybe it's time the uaw gives up the $33 mill resort with the $6 mill golf course that's lost $23 mill the past five years. 23 mill, that's a lot of union dues.
Quote:
The United Auto Workers may be out of the hole now that President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but the union isn't out of the bunker just yet.
Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it's costing them millions each year.
The UAW, known more for its strikes than its slices, hosts seminars and junkets at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., which is nestled on "1,000 heavily forested acres" on Michigan's Black Lake, according to its Web site.
But the Black Lake club and retreat, which are among the union's biggest fixed assets, have lost $23 million in the past five years alone, a heavy albatross around the union's neck as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis.
Critics call it a resort for union leaders that wastes money from union dues.
"It's their members' money that they're spending on this thing," said Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, a union watchdog group. "The union has bigger issues at hand than managing a golf course."
Managing the course may become a burden for the union. The UAW covers costs for the Reuther Center from the interest it earns on its strike fund, according to tax documents, but massive losses in the past five years have forced the union to make heavy loans to keep the center afloat. Critics call it a poor investment for a group with over $1.25 billion in assets.
"Unions certainly have had real estate investments in the past, but investments are supposed to make money, not bleed money," said Wilson.
tee it high, let it fly
_________________________
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