GM's record $38 billion loss!!! ouch

[deerplanter]

How much should someone be paid to snap a bunch of plastic together?! Employees need protection and representation but it's an assembly job....just a couple of notches above making license plates!

I agree those wages may be high for assembly jobs in this area, but maybe not up north, the bottom line is the big three never had real competition until now and people are tired of the quality control of the past. This is why they are hurting not the labor costs, but that is easier to adjust than other business aspects but in the end you will have the same results. As for the high costs of retirees, we will all be there someday and financially sound companies have money in a fund just for retiree's our fund is over funded by 20 million and the company can't touch that money with out the union's permission. This was actually set up like that by the founding family of the company before labor union's.

[Landrover]

Maybe Exxon-Mobile could float 'em a loan!

LMAO!!!

It ain't the union... (well maybe a little...) It's GMs failure at designing a platform which can be used world wide instead of multiple platforms. That's billions of dollars wasted in design... Along with a managment team that doesn't have a clue what to design to keep up with the rest of the world!!

It is odd that the Al Queda types all drive Toyota's.....dang reliable!

Yes, it is the union. If you want to blame management, then blame them for letting the imates run the asylum.
I have a hunch this GM mess (and Ford) is orchestrated to drive the companies into the ground, dismantel the labor unions, and then rebuild the companies in the image of Toyota.
Did you know the head of all labor unions are Democratic super-delegates? Learned that yesterday.

Good points!

This is a very key statement.

Expound on that for us D-Mo!

How much should someone be paid to snap a bunch of plastic together?! Employees need protection and representation but it's an assembly job....just a couple of notches above making license plates!

Wow, that was hard core.....but true!

[El Cheapo]

The wheels came off GM in the mid 1970's. Remember crap like the Chevy Vega? During my teen years I saw my father buy this junk and swore that I would never own anything by GM. To date I have owned seven new cars and they were all foreign. Guess I wasn't the only kid taking notes on GM's poor quality. In all fairness GM did improve from Vega-like crap but the mental image of a corporation that doesn't care about customers satisfaction is still there.

[DavisHollow]

Just so that you know Toyota USA is union, just better manegment, so is Shell, Exxon, Dupont, Chevron, the list goes on and these companies arn't going under.

I should have clarified. It's not whether you have a union or not, its the kind of union, and the relationship between the union and management. To say that the union at GM is not part of the problem is to completely aviod the problem.

I have insiders at Chrysler. They have large rooms set aside for union guys to come in and kill the day. They don't work, they just play cards. The union guaranteed their jobs which are obsolete, so they have to come in to fulfill their end of the deal, but that have nothing to do. Most of them complain that they have to come in. And they make $75k/year plus full benefits.

Management at GM is the problem, for it's failure to control the unions. Do you think Toyota union guys come in and get paid for not working?

[kyle1974]

How much should someone be paid to snap a bunch of plastic together?! Employees need protection and representation but it's an assembly job....just a couple of notches above making license plates!

apparently, just under 100K a year.....