http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080603/national/gm_cuts

Very unfortunate to see that many people lose their jobs like this.:sad:

It's unfortunate, but a company has to do what it has to do to stay alive.

The union is once again going to do more bad than good here. With threats of taking action and such. If they do force GM to keep the plants open building vehicles that won't sell, what good will it do?

Jeff

I bet it will get a lot worse if this country does not get its act together soon.

It's certainly getting difficult to stay lean and competitive in the manufacturing market.

The article stated that the canada plant was the highest cost plant that GM had.

That's the problem with unions. Negotiate your way into stronger and stronger contracts that eventually leave your manufacturing costs so high that your plant becomes uncompetitive.

Ultimately....... they loose their jobs because they can't compete.

Now, they'll fight the closing of the plant and weaken GM further taking even more jobs with them.

The Unions had their place back when Child labor flourished, Dangerous work conditions existed, and discrimination based on sex color and creed was rampant.

Today, Unions can do nothing for you that a labor board can't do if your discriminated against.

Other than creating a haven for poor performance.

Alot of families impacted by this, it touches alot of people.

It's a sad situation for all.

Here we go again, another Union buster. I guess this thread will get locked and deleted now. bye-bye.

Here we go again, another Union buster. I guess this thread will get locked and deleted now. bye-bye.
They don't get locked, or deleted. Just dumped into CE.

I saw that they were crying that the market for trucks and SUVs is drying up. If they had some forethought, they should have been ready to change those plants over to building small cars. If they had had even more forethought, they would have built the plant to easily convert lines to small cars.

K

. If they had had even more forethought, they would have built the plant to easily convert lines to small cars.


Janesville's plant is so old, there are sections of the plant that still have the original wood piling floor..... I can't blame GM for not thinking about fast change-overs to small cars when they built the plant in 1919.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janesville_Assembly
The factory was originally built to produce Samson tractors (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Samson_tractor&action=edit&redlink=1). These failed to find buyers, so GM switched it to producing Chevrolet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet) automobiles in 1923 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923). It has produced General Motors C/K Trucks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_C/K_Trucks) pickup trucks over the years, but today builds full-size SUVs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUVs).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janesville_Assembly#cite_note-Oldest_2005-0)


All in all it's an unfortunate situation. What should GM do? Run expensive plants under capacity? Or close some? Why is this all GM's fault? Could the economy be at least partly to blame? Afterall, before the dollar and housing market tanked, and when gas was cheap, GM was making money building and selling cars and trucks (particularly trucks in the later years...). Seems to me GM is damned if they do, damned if they dont.... keep unnecessary plants open, and they're stupid. Close them and they're stupid and evil.

What SHOULD they do?

I saw that they were crying that the market for trucks and SUVs is drying up. If they had some forethought, they should have been ready to change those plants over to building small cars. If they had had even more forethought, they would have built the plant to easily convert lines to small cars.

K

Hindsight my friend, hindsight. Any company could be making loads of cash and always do the right thing with that little invaluable tool called hindsight.

Hopefully this won't be a union bashing thread as it shouldn't be. We all have our opinions about unions and we can keep them to ourselves as it has been hashed out here endlessly. My point was that the union will do more harm than good by fighting to keep the plant open in this case. If they fight it and win GM is forced into building vehicles that won't sell until 2011, at which time they will shut down those plants and have even less money to offer as severances to the employees. Shut it down now, cut your losses, and hopefully move on.

Jeff

Hindsight???????? How about Foresight, or product development? Isn't that what the super high dollar CEO, FO, COO and all the other top brass are being paid for? For as long as I can remember and better than 20 years now of adult life economists have stated fuel prices would reach over $5 a gallon in our lifetime. 10 years ago GM stated publicly they were going to continue producing in mass quantities the gas guzzling line of Full size trucks and SUV's and minimize their efforts with the compact car lines. Do I feel for the families that are effected by the shutdowns of these 3 plants, yes!! Absolutely! But then again I feel for the other 7 or so percent who are unemployed in this country as well. Times are tough, economies run in cycles. GM has only GM to blame for it's financial woes, and I guarantee it has little if anything to do with it's union protected work force, if anything those hardworking american's are FAR better off having the representation.

Repop the Geo Metro and there will be plenty of jobs. I'm amazed that GM has continued to build trucks and urban 4X4s even though fuel prices were up for years. As far as some "labor board" or whatever protecting your rights, try getting anyone to help you in a "right to work" state. That means you have no rights, except to be terminated for no reason. There are good and bad things about unions, but I'd rather take my chances with someone looking out for me.

Hindsight???????? How about Foresight, or product development? Isn't that what the super high dollar CEO, FO, COO and all the other top brass are being paid for? For as long as I can remember and better than 20 years now of adult life economists have stated fuel prices would reach over $5 a gallon in our lifetime. 10 years ago GM stated publicly they were going to continue producing in mass quantities the gas guzzling line of Full size trucks and SUV's and minimize their efforts with the compact car lines. Do I feel for the families that are effected by the shutdowns of these 3 plants, yes!! Absolutely! But then again I feel for the other 7 or so percent who are unemployed in this country as well. Times are tough, economies run in cycles. GM has only GM to blame for it's financial woes, and I guarantee it has little if anything to do with it's union protected work force, if anything those hardworking american's are FAR better off having the representation.

x2

If GM is having problems, I think I'd look at the product development guys. Not the union guy putting tires on a Yukon.

Janesville's plant is so old, there are sections of the plant that still have the original wood piling floor..... I can't blame GM for not thinking about fast change-overs to small cars when they built the plant in 1919.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janesville_Assembly


What SHOULD they do?

You are right. After all, they have only had 90 odd years to update the plant. I am sure the plant has been retooled a couple of times since then. One of those times, they should have been thinking about the future. If the original wood piling floors don't matter for building trucks, neither would they matter for building small cars. Maybe take the executive bonuses for a couple years and use that money for retooling?

They did have the right idea with the EV-1, but they would have been laughed out of business. They aren't going to use a whole plant to build the few thousand cars a year they would have sold. But they could use smaller plants, locally to produce cars for certain markets. Small cars near urban areas, trucks near rural areas. Plants that can carry more than one line of vehicles in times of need.

What would I like to see? I would like GM to pull one out of the hat and say "here is the new EV-2 we have been working on since the old one left. It comes in three varieties. Commuter car, small truck (small like the old Nissan and Toyota trucks used to be) and Family wagon. All using the same platform, all using the same plug-in technology that could have been developed and improved in the last 10 years. THAT would be something impressive. GM could be proud of that. Doesn't do any good for the guy who needs to tow a 36 foot Donzi, but that guy isn't worried about fuel costs anyways.

(And before you give me any crap about inefficient coal/oil burning electric plants, 500 plants would be easier to clean up the emissions on than 4 million cars. ;))

K

I am not normally a union supprter... but I doubt this had a huge part in it. Unions here are ready to negotiate. What the problem may be is that in the past 20 years Canada has been a low cost region to build anything since our dollar was so weak compared to the US dollar. Now that they are at par, the effective cost to do the same business appears much greater in US dollars on the books than it did one year ago. Add to that all the other problems, like poor quality and product offerings that are not selling due to, as noted above, less than stellar foresight, that is the tri-factor of plant closings. JMO.

I just wonder why these guys are worth so much and how many vehicles have to be sold to pay them. Looks like plenty of blame to go around. Consumers wanted suvs and trucks so they built them. Now gas is $4 a gallon so they have to adjust. As far as unions go maybe just eliminate them all and see where your non union wages end up.http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2534738420080426

I just wonder why these guys are worth so much and how many vehicles have to be sold to pay them. Looks like plenty of blame to go around. Consumers wanted suvs and trucks so they built them. Now gas is $4 a gallon so they have to adjust. As far as unions go maybe just eliminate them all and see where your non union wages end up.http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2534738420080426


Looks like everybodies Milking the Cow...... And we wonder why Companies get in trouble.