Delphi Proposal to Cut Wages in Half!

Theres is sufficient excess capacity in the world auto market to replace
GM's output in short order. If GM actually shut down, it's plants,
designs and such would also be cherry picked by remaining companies and
it's best bits would stay in production.

I don't expect GM to shut down, but I do expect them to go through a
massive Chapter 11 reorganization sometime in the next 1-10 years.

John

 

No, not at all.

There have always been terrorists ever since governments have existed.
A couple hundred years ago they called them "pirates"

But no terrorist organization can exist without a base of operations and
funding. The terrorists today in the Mid East are quietly funded by people
in places like Saudi Arabia, and by governments like Syria that have an
interest in keeping areas destabilized. But, those same people in Saudi
Arabia and Syria would not be funding Palestinian terrorists if they had
serious business interests in those areas.

Naturally you can never eleminate the effects of one determined man with
a gun who is willing to sacrifice himself. But, assassins and such have
always
been with us as well.

The US population right now is stuck on terrorists because for so much
of the countries history foreign terrorists were a rarity due to the US's
isolationist stance. But there were no shortage of domestic terrorists.
Once the US became entangled in foreign affairs, foreign terrorists became
common and the US public is stunned by it.

More people are killed in a year in auto crashes than by terrorists, far,
far more.

Ted

 

That is true, however it is also the case that if you do the paperwork
documentation
required to get someone fired, whether union or not, and CYA, you will spend
all
your time on doing paperwork. Thus, the goof-off ends up destroying 2
persons
productivity, his own, and his managers.

The real problem, though, isn't in the firing end, it is in the hiring end.
Most managers
are never trained in how to interview people and a majority of companies
never
check references or do background checks on people. It is also quite easy
to hire
a person for a "temporary" period for about 6 months, often from a temp
agency,
then if they work out then bring them in permanently. But once again, many
businesses
are too cheapskate to do this, as they don't want to pay the hiring bonus to
the
temp agency.

Ted

 

I guess I should know that but I worked in a wild assortment of union
shops which are probably not the types you fellows are familiar with.
The union shop does give an awful lot of protection to even dumb, bad,
dishonest workers. Probably the most dangerous union shop I ever worked
at was in the merchant marines in war zones. But that's really a
special case. We had guys coming out of prison. Guy dreaming of robbing
safes. Even one auto worker from Detroit! He was about as useless as I
was! Nice fellow just dumb. Probably rich and smiling now though!

 

Read? Who do you think you are suggesting we read about the unions and
the early immigants who formed the powerful unions to fight the
sweatshops on the Lower East Side in New York city? The Triangle Fire
anybody?

You're right, of course. It's just my recent personal experience with
unions has been very bad. Well, one particular union obviously. But I
tried. The really bad-ass union, a local Teamsters, not the sweetheart
corrupt one I mentioned before, actually gave me the most time and
consideration. I don't know what happened to them. Something with
shotguns and holing up to fight the main Teamsters. Kind of nasty.

But you need unions. One leading law firm that does the union work
actually uses the UAW to protect its clerk hourly employees from these
really nasty high-powered legal types, its own lawyers, who are
fighting for labor. That's really ugly but life goes on.

 

However - the effects (on the economy and other aspects of society) from
a successful terrorist act are orders of magnitude greater than the same
deathtoll in auto deaths over a given time period. Example: 3000 auto
deaths over a given period in 2001 vs. 9/11 - which had geater lasting
impact on our country? The effect is greatly psychological - perhaps
that's why they call it *TERROR*. (Thats't not to belittle the impact
on individual lives of tragic auto accidents.)

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

I have some war stories that relate and that can shed some light:

I was an engineering manager for a second tier supplier to two of the
then big three.

GM/Delphi had a scheme for dealing with suppliers called PICOS. This
was part of the Lopez legacy. Here are two important observations
regarding the PICOS excercise that were forever stamped in my brain from
that experience:

(1) GM/DELPHI AS PREDATOR
The buyers, a couple of engineers, and certain other individuals with
smokey job titles and desriptions would arrange meetings with the
supplier's counterparts for a couple of weeks. Many man-months were
"invested" by the supplier for the whole purpose of cutting cost out of
a product that was being provided by the supplier. The "promise" was
that any resulting savings from these brainstorming efforts would be
documented and quantified in detail, and GM/Delphi and the supplier
would split the savings 50/50. Sounds great, right?

Here's the hook: At the end of the process, after all the possible
savings were squeezed out of the product, Delphi purchasing would say:
"Oh - by the way - did we tell you that we are going to put this part
back out on the streets for global sourcing? It's part of the
requirements the PICOS process." (Of course they had failed to tell us
that.)

For those who haven't thought ahead to the inherent result of that, what
it meant was that, to competitively bid against other suppliers, you had
to slice off all the savings that you had helped them come up with
regarding the part - the savings that you were promised to share 50/50
in. Oh - and the design changes that you came up with on your nickel to
reduce the cost? The resulting revised drawings were going to be in the
RFQ package being sent to all the bidders/potential suppliers of the part.

BTW - Lopez went to VW and ended up doing hard time in Europe - can't
remember what for, but whatever it was for, I'm sure it was deserved.
He had codified unethical and fraudulent practices at GM that were
carried on long after he left. Whenever a supplier fell victim to those
practices (such as with the PICOS process), one was said to have been
"Lopezed". Don't know if they still have that phrasing in the auto
industry today or not - that was 5 years ago.

(2) GM/DELPHI AS VICTIM

The other observation about the PICOS process was that the union workers
were sacred. If, in our brainstorming, we identified a savings that
would have made the process more efficient and thus reduced the labor
required (i.e., eliminated jobs) at the Delphi or GM plant in processing
that part, that particular savings could not be implemented due to
unfortunate union agreements that GM had entered into years earlier.
Those restrictions did not apply to Ford or Chrysler. Those bad union
agreements that GM had agreed to held them back for years. One of the
reasons they were less profitable than Ford and Chrysler for a couple of
decades.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

We have started down that slippery slope.imho

You are absolutely NOT wrong, Roy. Pre unions, there was child labor, sweat
shop conditions,
no benefits, conspired salary controls.

Had not the unions been formed, does anyone REALLY think that American would
have been
a fit place to work? Not likely.

Yes, there have been excesses. And the attitude of some Americans is toward
something for
nothing.

But in the past, it was all for the wealthy industrialists, and nothing for
anybody else.

 

The REAL difference is realized ... significantly for this thread... on
the impact to the economy.

Apples are good but oranges are healthier.

9/11 probably hit the economy for as much as a trillion dollars in lost
GDP.

3000 auto deaths a WEEK wouldnt have that effect. Just as in 'piracy,
where the risks are relatively known and accounted for, the impact of
terrorism, however, is in the unforeseen.

The Oklahoma 'Suicide' of a week ago is a dark harbinger. It WAS NOT a
singular act. It WAS a mis-fire.

And THAT is why there is a relative silence about it.

 

Absolutely right. That was in the 1800s. This is no longer the 1800s.
Nowtimes, the reason for the unions' existence is to enrich the union
leaders at the expense of the rank and file.

You *really* think that's changed? Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Parmalat,
Delphi, every major oil company...shall I go on?


DS

 

Blah blah sloganeering blahbitty blah blah.

There is no one single answer to that question. It gets even less simple
when the question is asked properly: "Where would we be without unions *IN
THEIR PRESENT FORM*.

 

I worked in a union shop for 40 years. I've seen the union reps toss out good
grievances to get someone back to work that was fired for coming to work drunk
18 times in 17 years. I've seen the reps fight for people that repeatedly do
not show up on time, have excessive absences, and generally do not do what they
were hired to do. Management agrees to bring them back in return for dropping
legitimate grievances and other bargaining issues.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Retired Shop Rat: 14,647 days in a GM plant.
Now I can do what I enjoy: Large Format Photography

Web Site: www.destarr.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

Hard time dealing with a little history and fact?

 

Most unions have elections, don't like what a rep is doing, vote him/her
out. Been my experience that a union's membership get's the representation
they deserve. Remember that the membership is the "union". Then again some
unions are filled with members that whine and bitch and do not participate.
Then they wonder why things go to hell.

40 years is along time. Enjoy retirement.

 

Not at all. Present some history and some facts, not just empty slogans,
and I'll deal with it just fine.

 

Alcoholism has been ruled a disease under the Disability Act by some Federal
district courts.. Employers must try to accommodate alcoholics to a degree
at which they seek treatment. Companies and unions have always tried to
help the more valuable experienced employees in getting straitened out.
Many do, and keep their job but many still end up out of a job.

mike hunt

 

Of course things like that can happen but the point is the original poster
made the broad statement that being a union member prevents management from
firing bad employees and that simply is not factual.

mike hunt

 

That is not true either. The fact is the more one earns in the US the more
one pays in taxes. Not only do you pay more in dollars, you are taxed at a
higher RATE as well. Those at the top already pay more than their fair
share of taxes. The top 5% of all taxpayers pay more than 50% of all the
taxes paid to the federal treasury. Since the tax RATES were reduced in
2000, around 45% or more, of all American pay NO taxes to the federal
treasury. That information is available on the IRS web site for anyone
willing to do a search.


mike hunt

 

Really? None of the assembly plants that GM has shut down, over the past
five years, have been bought by other auto manufactures. Why would any of
the foreign manufactures want to buy them in any event? Most of their
plants were built at taxpayers expense in non union states to attract them
to those states. Notice the Toyota ads that say they operate in new pants
worth billons of dollars. They never say they OWN those plants. They say
they assemble cars and trucks in several states, but if you look at the fine
print, its says they are assemble them of world sourced parts. You said it
yourself if GM goes under the jobs lost will go off shore. Do you think
Toyota will still assemble car in the US of Chinese parts when it will be
far cheaper to make the parts and the cars in China?

mike hunt