Is it too late to save GM?
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Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 146
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Originally Posted by SSbaby
As if the closure of plants and loss of 30,000 jobs (some whitecollar) isn't enough to make UAW members understand the reality of the future they face. 
Surely, they won't be that stubborn, not this time? 
The options are simple. Accept the new contracts or GM faces bankruptcy... then there will be no more choice. To open the wound would not be in their best interest, particularly from a public perception viewpoint. It could make unions altogether irrelevant, depending on their stand.
Surely, they won't be that stubborn, not this time? The options are simple. Accept the new contracts or GM faces bankruptcy... then there will be no more choice. To open the wound would not be in their best interest, particularly from a public perception viewpoint. It could make unions altogether irrelevant, depending on their stand.
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 547
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
The problem is, the jobs that are being cut, do not need to be.
When a company is ailing, you don't slash and burn to get to the core.
You gradually heal and get things back on track.
Cutting jobs is an unnecesary step that is idiotic.
Vast overnight changes do not fix companies. Maybe for a while, but not for good.
When a company is ailing, you don't slash and burn to get to the core.
You gradually heal and get things back on track.
Cutting jobs is an unnecesary step that is idiotic.
Vast overnight changes do not fix companies. Maybe for a while, but not for good.
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,650
From: Indianapolis, IN
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Originally Posted by 5thGen
The problem is, the jobs that are being cut, do not need to be.
When a company is ailing, you don't slash and burn to get to the core.
You gradually heal and get things back on track.
Cutting jobs is an unnecesary step that is idiotic.
Vast overnight changes do not fix companies. Maybe for a while, but not for good.
When a company is ailing, you don't slash and burn to get to the core.
You gradually heal and get things back on track.
Cutting jobs is an unnecesary step that is idiotic.
Vast overnight changes do not fix companies. Maybe for a while, but not for good.
GM sells lots of vehicles. The problem is that it is costing them more to design, build, and market those vehicles than the revenue being generated by their sale. They need to cut costs. They can't just raise prices and magically generate more revenue, so costs must come down.
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Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 2,947
From: Springfield,OH. U.S.A.
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Whether shut down completely, bought by GM or an outside investment firm, or run with fewer lower paid workers, Delphi as it was is dead.
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 1,179
From: Ballwin, MO
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Originally Posted by 90rocz
It's a shame it came to this, there are a lot of hard-working people around here that are proud of the product they make. Blame can't soley rest on the UAW, there must have been some bad management decisions being made for some time. That or, it's being used for a "test bed" for future dealings with union shops.
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 547
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Originally Posted by 96_Camaro_B4C
Unnecessary according to whom? Should they maintain their same production capacities and same number of workers, even though they are losing market share?
GM sells lots of vehicles. The problem is that it is costing them more to design, build, and market those vehicles than the revenue being generated by their sale. They need to cut costs. They can't just raise prices and magically generate more revenue, so costs must come down.
GM sells lots of vehicles. The problem is that it is costing them more to design, build, and market those vehicles than the revenue being generated by their sale. They need to cut costs. They can't just raise prices and magically generate more revenue, so costs must come down.
So they should cut hourly and middle management employees?
Sorry, but it is like severing the wrong limb to treat an infection.
They should decrease their parts content cost, decrease the engineering costs, decrease the marketing costs and then work to grow sales.
They currently are losing a lot of money on every car. THis is due to overhead that can't be changed (Health care for retirees, etc) So instead of laying off people, maybe they should work to make more profit per vehicle.
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Joined: Sep 1999
Posts: 1,873
From: South Jersey
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Originally Posted by 5thGen
They should decrease their parts content cost, decrease the engineering costs, decrease the marketing costs and then work to grow sales.
How exactly do you "decrease engineering costs"? Do less engineering? Tell your engineers to "work harder"?
If you "decrease marketing costs" how do you then work to grow sales with less marketing?
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Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 2,947
From: Springfield,OH. U.S.A.
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Excerpt from Jan: UAW's Solidarity Mag:
Through no fault of workers, GM faces several challenges to its profitability, including:
• Dwindling sales and market share.
• The steeply rising cost of health care for active workers and retirees.
• Unfair “free” trade policies that do not enforce workers rights in other countries.
• Currency manipulation by Japan and China that gives unfair advantages to producers in those countries.
The UAW believes neither GM nor any other automaker can shrink itself into prosperity. The American manufacturing system is threatened by an uneven playing field that favors foreign and nonunion producers.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President Shoemaker have sent testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives calling for congressional intervention:
“The crisis in the U.S. auto industry is much bigger than any one company or even any one industry. It represents a crossroads for our economy and our country. What’s at stake is the kind of future we will choose for America and its working families.”
Through no fault of workers, GM faces several challenges to its profitability, including:
• Dwindling sales and market share.
• The steeply rising cost of health care for active workers and retirees.
• Unfair “free” trade policies that do not enforce workers rights in other countries.
• Currency manipulation by Japan and China that gives unfair advantages to producers in those countries.
The UAW believes neither GM nor any other automaker can shrink itself into prosperity. The American manufacturing system is threatened by an uneven playing field that favors foreign and nonunion producers.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President Shoemaker have sent testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives calling for congressional intervention:
“The crisis in the U.S. auto industry is much bigger than any one company or even any one industry. It represents a crossroads for our economy and our country. What’s at stake is the kind of future we will choose for America and its working families.”
More:
Trade deal threatens 90,000 UAW jobs
The Bush administration had hoped to wrap up negotiations with Thailand on a so-called free trade deal by the end of last year, but that didn’t happen. Look for it to come up early this year.
The United States, the world’s largest producer of pickups, has a 25 percent tariff on imported pickups. If the tariff is eliminated or substantially reduced, it would pose a huge threat to more than 90,000 UAW workers who either assemble pickups at 13 plants in eight states or produce parts or components for pickups.
Thailand is the world’s second-largest producer of pickups, and several companies based in the United States and Japan already produce pickups there.
But if there is a change in the 25 percent tariff, even more producers from Korea, India and China could shift pickup production to Thailand to take advantage of the opportunity to get around the U.S. tariff.
Tell your members of Congress to keep the administration from negotiating away American jobs.
The Bush administration had hoped to wrap up negotiations with Thailand on a so-called free trade deal by the end of last year, but that didn’t happen. Look for it to come up early this year.
The United States, the world’s largest producer of pickups, has a 25 percent tariff on imported pickups. If the tariff is eliminated or substantially reduced, it would pose a huge threat to more than 90,000 UAW workers who either assemble pickups at 13 plants in eight states or produce parts or components for pickups.
Thailand is the world’s second-largest producer of pickups, and several companies based in the United States and Japan already produce pickups there.
But if there is a change in the 25 percent tariff, even more producers from Korea, India and China could shift pickup production to Thailand to take advantage of the opportunity to get around the U.S. tariff.
Tell your members of Congress to keep the administration from negotiating away American jobs.
Last edited by 90rocz; Feb 11, 2006 at 01:02 AM.
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 547
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Originally Posted by WERM
...so....when most of your suppliers are teetering in the edge of bankruptcy themselves...and you've already "cut them to the bone" how do you get them to lower prices further?
How exactly do you "decrease engineering costs"? Do less engineering? Tell your engineers to "work harder"?
If you "decrease marketing costs" how do you then work to grow sales with less marketing?
How exactly do you "decrease engineering costs"? Do less engineering? Tell your engineers to "work harder"?
If you "decrease marketing costs" how do you then work to grow sales with less marketing?
You decrease engineering costs by finding out which companies you have under your control that can do it for less.
For instance, Before any company owned SAAB, it was able to make profits, use their own platforms that were designed in house, all with around 30k units annually. If they spent 1b to design a platform they would have had to sell 34,000 cars just to get that back in income, not profits. They also designed their own engines. Another example is Subaru, they had lower volumes yet had the ability to have multiple platforms and engines. THings can be done in better ways than the GM 10b to design an all new car right off the bat, with an existing engine.
Also, losing Market share is part of the problem, not a fact of life that you just deal with.
"oh we are losing market share, so we are going to just keep losing market share and become a smaller company" - Brilliant.
I guess looking at it like a problem that needs to be fixed is out of the question "We are losing Market share, Why? Let's do something to change that" - I guess that would be the stupid approach huh?
You decrease marketing costs by being more inventive. There are marketing strategies beyond 100m in commercials and 50m in print ads a year.
Do you have ANY idea how much a 1 page ad costs in R&T? try around 100k for a 1 time ad on one page. I know on many occasions I have opened my R&T to see 15-20 pages of GM ads. When I got to the 5-6-7th page I thought this was ridiculous. This was before I knew how much the ads cost. I am sure GM gets a discounted price for buying in Bulk, but I am also sure they pay for R&T and all it's employees salaries alone. Is it effective? I seriously doubt 10,000 people saw those ads and decided to go buy the GM products they featured. Commercials have become so generic and overwhelming in quantity that most people completely Zone them out. I hate commercials on TV, repetitive and I don't pay attention to them, unless they are overwhelmingly funny.
What about setting up a deal with grocery stores and malls to have displays with the new product either right in front of the store, or inside? These are places people go to in volumes. Don't try to sell them, just put up a display with knowledgable people. I've seen this done incorrectly, where Dealerships set it up and try to sell them, or there is no one there to tell you anything about it, or where you can buy one, etc. If you were headed to the Grocery store and lets just say whateever car you were interested in was slated to go on sale in 2-3 months, but it was sitting there where you could look at it find out info about it and so on, what would you think about that?
I have several other creative marketing ideas, but I would not completely abandon the Print and TV ads, I just think they are trying to overcome the fact that TV and Print ads are ignored by placing even more. I would just make less of them, but make them really good.
Not an overwhelming change, but just eliminating or changing what is not working.
What is not working is spending billions to develop a platform.
- it can be done for less.
What is not working is spending hundreds of millions on Ads.
- people know what Chevys are, find different ways to reach them where they are more open to new things as opposed to where the first instinct is to ignore them.
What is not working for GM is overpriced parts.
- Maybe Delphi should shift from a manufacturer to a distributor, and set up manufacturing partnerships with other companies, where they can make the parts for less.
Toyota, Honda, Mazda Hyundai etc, they all make their parts overseas, they get tax breaks for bringing their cars into the US, then they pay lower wages at their US plants. In order for GM to be able to compete, they must adapt. To keep going as they are going, they will do nothing but lose money more and more every year. The cost to build a chevy is higher than the cost to build a toyota, but they have to keep the prices similar to compete. So when they cut their prices to compete with Toyota they can compete, but they also lose money. So they need to cut costs where it is too high. Period. If they don't they will contine to lose money on every sale, no matter what they do. Making less cars will mean they will lose more per car, because the healthcare of Retirees will not go away, it will just get spread over fewer car sales.
Cutting down the workforce is the dumbest thing they can do. THey are still the Number one car maker in the world, they should act like it.
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 547
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Regarding UAW,
they are somewhat to blame, as much as US health insurance and providers.
Costs of everything in the US goes up and up. While the factory worker in China still makes under 60 bucks a month. Some union workers make that in an hour.
What GM should do, is create partnerships with these factories in China, pay the workers there a good wage for the area, and provide safe workign conditions and build up the community, and provide a great place to work.
For one, people will recognize this and want to work there, the company will establish itself as a better company, all your pro-us anti-foreign unregulated labor parties will advertise how well GM treats it's overseas employees, while GM saves 80% on parts and has more capital invest more wisely into US engineering design and so on.
The day of US manufacturing is numbered. The only way to make things better is to make foreign labor better. Treating the employees like people and supporting them and their families, instead of paying cut throat wages and forgetting about work conditions, etc.
I do see the US as still being the final assembly point for many cars, but the day of the 50 dollar an hour line worker is numbered and the days started ticking off years ago.
they are somewhat to blame, as much as US health insurance and providers.
Costs of everything in the US goes up and up. While the factory worker in China still makes under 60 bucks a month. Some union workers make that in an hour.
What GM should do, is create partnerships with these factories in China, pay the workers there a good wage for the area, and provide safe workign conditions and build up the community, and provide a great place to work.
For one, people will recognize this and want to work there, the company will establish itself as a better company, all your pro-us anti-foreign unregulated labor parties will advertise how well GM treats it's overseas employees, while GM saves 80% on parts and has more capital invest more wisely into US engineering design and so on.
The day of US manufacturing is numbered. The only way to make things better is to make foreign labor better. Treating the employees like people and supporting them and their families, instead of paying cut throat wages and forgetting about work conditions, etc.
I do see the US as still being the final assembly point for many cars, but the day of the 50 dollar an hour line worker is numbered and the days started ticking off years ago.
Registered User
Joined: Feb 1999
Posts: 2,947
From: Springfield,OH. U.S.A.
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Regarding UAW,
they are somewhat to blame, as much as US health insurance and providers.
Costs of everything in the US goes up and up. While the factory worker in China still makes under 60 bucks a month. Some union workers make that in an hour.
they are somewhat to blame, as much as US health insurance and providers.
Costs of everything in the US goes up and up. While the factory worker in China still makes under 60 bucks a month. Some union workers make that in an hour.
Again, the REAL causes are listed above, lower labor costs and insurance is a "bandaid fix" at best..
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Joined: Sep 1999
Posts: 1,873
From: South Jersey
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Originally Posted by 5thGen
Do you think they can only work with one supplier? And they have forced them to take less profits for them to keep being competitive in their end price. Be competitive or you don't survive, simple.
BTW, these same companies have been dropped over a nickel's savings so many times that they are reluctant to share new technology with these companies for fear they will lose the business before they can recoup their R&D costs....so other companies get it first...
You decrease engineering costs by finding out which companies you have under your control that can do it for less.
For instance, Before any company owned SAAB, it was able to make profits, use their own platforms that were designed in house, all with around 30k units annually. If they spent 1b to design a platform they would have had to sell 34,000 cars just to get that back in income, not profits. They also designed their own engines. Another example is Subaru, they had lower volumes yet had the ability to have multiple platforms and engines. THings can be done in better ways than the GM 10b to design an all new car right off the bat, with an existing engine.
For instance, Before any company owned SAAB, it was able to make profits, use their own platforms that were designed in house, all with around 30k units annually. If they spent 1b to design a platform they would have had to sell 34,000 cars just to get that back in income, not profits. They also designed their own engines. Another example is Subaru, they had lower volumes yet had the ability to have multiple platforms and engines. THings can be done in better ways than the GM 10b to design an all new car right off the bat, with an existing engine.
Cutting down the workforce is the dumbest thing they can do. THey are still the Number one car maker in the world, they should act like it.
Registered User
Joined: Sep 1999
Posts: 1,873
From: South Jersey
Re: Is it too late to save GM?
Originally Posted by 5thGen
Regarding UAW,
they are somewhat to blame, as much as US health insurance and providers.
Costs of everything in the US goes up and up. While the factory worker in China still makes under 60 bucks a month. Some union workers make that in an hour.
What GM should do, is create partnerships with these factories in China, pay the workers there a good wage for the area, and provide safe workign conditions and build up the community, and provide a great place to work.
For one, people will recognize this and want to work there, the company will establish itself as a better company, all your pro-us anti-foreign unregulated labor parties will advertise how well GM treats it's overseas employees, while GM saves 80% on parts and has more capital invest more wisely into US engineering design and so on.
The day of US manufacturing is numbered. The only way to make things better is to make foreign labor better. Treating the employees like people and supporting them and their families, instead of paying cut throat wages and forgetting about work conditions, etc.
I do see the US as still being the final assembly point for many cars, but the day of the 50 dollar an hour line worker is numbered and the days started ticking off years ago.
they are somewhat to blame, as much as US health insurance and providers.
Costs of everything in the US goes up and up. While the factory worker in China still makes under 60 bucks a month. Some union workers make that in an hour.
What GM should do, is create partnerships with these factories in China, pay the workers there a good wage for the area, and provide safe workign conditions and build up the community, and provide a great place to work.
For one, people will recognize this and want to work there, the company will establish itself as a better company, all your pro-us anti-foreign unregulated labor parties will advertise how well GM treats it's overseas employees, while GM saves 80% on parts and has more capital invest more wisely into US engineering design and so on.
The day of US manufacturing is numbered. The only way to make things better is to make foreign labor better. Treating the employees like people and supporting them and their families, instead of paying cut throat wages and forgetting about work conditions, etc.
I do see the US as still being the final assembly point for many cars, but the day of the 50 dollar an hour line worker is numbered and the days started ticking off years ago.
That rumbling sound you hear in the distance is the crumbling of the standard of living in the US. The way it's stacking up now, Gen X or Y will be the first generation in the history of this country to be less well off than the previous generation.