Ford's better idea?

[greg334]

After hearing for a few days that Ford will lay off 75,000 workers, I find out today the package they are getting is outrageous. Just mentioned the retraining allowance, the health care and a separation pay is upsetting. I bet our great governor of Michigan will also kick in some more stuff that they don’t need to make them feel better about their job loss.

I see this will effect us, at least the ones who run exclusive automotive. I have a feeling that they will close a lot more plants and distribution centers. They already said that they will close dealerships to align them with the market share they have – just wish they would produce a product that people will buy.

The other thing that gets me is bringing in a non-automotive guy (someone who dealt with a much closed market I might add) to run the show at $22M a year, is this a joke? Iacocca took stock options and a buck a year, so I would expect they would find someone like him who is willing to put up future earnings against the success of the work he would do at the company. Maybe they should have hired Carly Fiorina instead, she at least turned around HP and knows a highly competitive consumer market.

 

[Paul56]

I invested in HP a number of years ago and have been following the company very closely.

Fiorina's tenure at HP is a black mark on the company's otherwise stellar history of research, innovation and collaboration. The company lost the "HP Way" under her rule.

Fiorina attempted to run the place under autocratic rule which just didn't work in a company that has long standing culture of exactly the opposite... collaborative teamwork.

On the other hand, Mark Hurd the current CEO is doing a marvelous job of getting the organization turned around. Certainly, the current legal and management issues regarding the investigation over news leaks will hinder this progress.

 

[Lawrence]

This may be or may not be the place to make this statement but here goes - sooner or later the buying of foreign cars, specifically Japanese cars was going to knock on our front doors.

For those of you who buy these vehicles - there is, in fact a cause and effect.

Buy American.

Period.

And please - excuse me - I don't want to hear how they run better or you don't want to support the UAW. How about supporting expediting?

Lawrence,
Expediters Online.com


T.V. - Why do you think they call it programming?

No, YOU suck. - the mean people

"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States." - J. Bartlett Brebner

Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. - I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.

Become who you are. - Nietzsche


Whoever coined the phrase "Quiet as a mouse" has never stepped on one.




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[tec1959]

Lawrence GREAT POINT...

 

[x06col]

I've heard numbers from 25K to 75K severance for those poor souls bantered about, plus, retraining funds etc. Now, I don't know if performance I have observed from the dock workers is indicitive of the rest of that mob, but, i'd be hard pressed to offer two-bits before I sent them down the road.

 

[copdsux]

Not taking issue with what Lawrence said, but I do have a question...
What vehicle, on sale today, comes with a "Made in America" label?

 

[greg334]

Paul
I would agree to a point, before she came aboard that HP had slipped in market share and the service end of things show poor performance to the point people went to other vendors for printers and servers. I remember this all too clearly and the improvments she made from the consumer end. I also agree that since her 'removal' HP has become even better.

Lawrence,

This is all good and well, but I see it a different way - if you want us to buy an american product from an american company, you make it in america - major componets made here. Not made in mexico, not assembled in Mexico.

I don't agree that Mexico is part of the US as much as Canada is. I have reservations about including Canada in the Buy American theme simply because GM, Ford, CHrysler (not D-C) and other car companies established plants there so they produce products for those markets, not the US market.

Outside of that GO Canada!

Oh and I bet you that if Ford makes it through the next few years and survives, they will ramp up production in Mexico instead of here or Canada.

 

[Jefferson3000]

So true, Freightchaser. Toyotas are manufactured in the US. Unfortumately, a lot of our "American" car makers are making stuff in Mexico. Sorry Lawrence. With all due respect, I am not sure that buying "American" would save "American" car makers OR expediting. American, Japanese, Korean, Swedish or German, they are all international companies. International money.

IMO, the only thing that will save expediting is for expediting companies to diversify their customer base. A lot has changed for manufacturing in the last 25 years. Unfortunately, I see much of expediting is depending on a 25 year old business plan. There is a lot of talk right now for companies to learn how to configure their supply chain so as to eliminate as much emergency expense as possible. If expediting continues to rely on that "old school" paradigm of factory supply, we will be as extinct as the house and buggy, grumbling about why no one appreciates a good horse these days.


Drive Safe!

Jeff

 

[wahoofan]

I agree with your last statement about the vehicles will be assembled in Mexico not canada or US. Union labor, taxes, incompetency are the reasons for the crash.:'( :-( x(

 

[RichM]

I own a 2005 Chevy Mailbu. Decent Automobile and I have no complaints. Gets excellent mileage. The vehicle was assembled in Kansas City with a parts content of 90% Us/Canadian.
I also own the very best auto I have ever owned in my life. It is a 1997 Ford Escort,asembled in Michigan,parts content 95% Us/Canadian.

I agree back in the 80's ,70's,US Auto manufacturers were putting out
crap. I lived in Taylor MI for a short stretch. My neighbor worked for GM. He used to say"the quickest way to get fired from GM is propose something radical that might rock the boat". Senior VP's that essentially do nothing but push papers around do not want a change that might affect their bonus.

A good deal of American manufacturing was that way. The old guys on the board would not want to see inovative ideas from young people that might rock their little wagon. Kodak and Polariod are good examples, who never thought Digital Cameras would catch on. Now Polariod is a fraction of it's self and Kodak is trying hard to catch up.

So what does this all mean to the expediting industry. Companies are streamlining supply lines,new traffic managers look at all aspects. The old days of " Call Panther or Tri State" may be going by the wayside as companies must get leaner to survive.

 

[Lawrence]

Greg,

I would say at this point in our global economy - buying Canadian is synonymous with Buying American.
All politics aside, it's about quality of life and geographic closeness (not to mention cultural similarities).

The US and Canada are very similar - -not so unfortunately for our Friends to the South – Mexico.

Buying American isn’t about supporting labor unions, it’s about supporting America. American jobs and American
Quality of life (read Canadian too).

Buying American isn’t about supporting the Big Three either; it’s about supporting America and American jobs and American quality of life.

For the record Asian cars are “assembled†in the US. They use heavy US made components like door knobs and wiper blades – then tell everyone
They are “American madeâ€.

Nah, Baby Nah.

God Bless America.

Lawrence,
Expediters Online.com


T.V. - Why do you think they call it programming?

No, YOU suck. - the mean people

"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States." - J. Bartlett Brebner

Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure. - I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.

Become who you are. - Nietzsche


Whoever coined the phrase "Quiet as a mouse" has never stepped on one.




-----------------------------------------
Thanks For Visiting EO!
[p]
http://www.expeditersonline.com/hotnews/sterling_eo_forum.jpg


Please Help Us Get The Word
Out About Expediters Online.com!
-----------------------------------------

 

[gavinsdad]

I see another @*!%?fest going on about autoworkers here, so as a laid-off autoworker living in Detroit and having to look into new careers at the mooment, I feel it to be necessary to set a few things straight concerning autoworkers. Anybody who complains about the pay and benefits that we recieve obviously has never done the job. Many have a pre-concieved notion that we are all a bunch of lazy, whining, spoiled brats, and while that may be the case for some it has never been the case with me. In my 7 years in the "steelhouse" as we call it, I have been subjected to environments that would gag a maggot. At American Axle in Hamtramck Michigan, UAW Local 235, is where I have been serving my time since I was 24 years old, and if I never see the inside of an auto plant again it will be too soon.

During that time I have been seriously injured 7 times, and I am not talking about a little muscle strain here. I have suffered heat stroke, herniated two discs in my lumbar spine, hit by a hi-lo, carpal-tunnel syndrome and tendonitis, my right index finger was almost completely severed and I still have no feeling in it today even after 2 surgeries, a torn rotator-cuff in my right shoulder, two broken toes due to faulty dunnage, and several serious lacerations that required numerous stitches. Just since I started in 1999 there have been 6 deaths on the shop floor that were not caused by negligence of the union worker, rather they were caused by faulty equipment, and in several cases were caused by performing a task that they were ordered to do by their direct supervisor. I personally have seen a girl get scalped by a moving conveyor that had no safety guards on it. I have watched as a fluid containment tank blew up in my Jobsetter's face causing him to recieve second and third degree burns on his hands and face. I have also carried the casket of a close friend of mine who was shot in the head by shrapnel from a hydraulic pump that was malfunctioning and management refused to shut the pump down because it would have disrupted production for a couple of hours (God forbid), so they kept it running. The pump literally exploded and a bolt from it lodged in my friends head killing him instantly. He was 27 years old with a 10 month old daughter...

In the area that I worked in during the summer it was nothing for the mercury in the thermometer hanging by my job to hover around the 110 degree mark, at one point last summer almost reaching 120 degrees before I suffered a heat stroke and they finally shut the machine down. I was expected to meet production while working in this environment.

With that said, does anybody still think that autoworkers are overpaid? I think that the severance that is being offered is a pittance that in no way justifies all what some people have lost in the process, which for some was their lives.

The job itself isn't worth it. My way would be cleared by retirees who are taking the severance package, and I would be called back to the plant once they retired. I am not going to go back. I am taking the severance package myself and moving on to another chapter in my life. The job itself just isn't worth it... The people who complain obviously have never had to do it.

 

[DannyD]

Quite a powerful post. Yes, it changed my mind on some of the things. I never felt that 90% of the workers were lazy, though I do feel that some of the people in shipping/receiving don't care. I found it more on a plant by plant basis. Ford Dearborn & Louisville is a good examples of chaos in my experiences. Yet Ypsi, Wixom, & Saline (Visteon) have always been pretty good about things.

I did feel the severence package was to high, but after reading your post I think a lil differently. It also puts a different perspective on the challenges we face. When ya get right down to it the major challenges in this industry are waiting & maybe the occasional breakdown. Not that either of those are fun, & sometimes quite unprofitable, but neither is a threat to your health or your life. When ya think about it in the course of life, that's not a whole lot to deal w/.

Be well,
Danny

 

[DannyD]

He used to say"the quickest way to get fired
>from GM is propose something radical that might rock the
>boat". Senior VP's that essentially do nothing but push
>papers around do not want a change that might affect their
>bonus.
>
>A good deal of American manufacturing was that way. The old
>guys on the board would not want to see inovative ideas from
>young people that might rock their little wagon.

A lil addition to this is the politics of things. My friend's company is doing work w/ GM. He's been told by a VP "outside of our vehicles themselves, you're our most important project". So his work is pretty important to GM. GM's customers are technically their dealerships, not individual people. You'd be amazed at how many parts & such get lost at dealerships (or maybe ya wouldnt). Sometimes a large dealership might have a $700,000/year shortage in inventory. My friends technology has reduced that down to almost nothing. By "nothing" I mean that same dealership the next year had an $8000 shortage in inventory & that was likely human error or theft. Plus it does a whole slew of other things that saves labor & helps in other areas that are beyond what I can explain. So it's a pretty important piece of technology GM can use. Honda has made it mandatory for his technology to be in all their Canada dealerships by the end of 2007 & I think the US dealerships by 2009 or what have ya.

Anyway, I'm kinda summarizing things here but the idea is spot on. Ya have two people high up in GM who are both supposed to be trying to help the company. One thinks his contributions are revolutionary. He's doing everything in his power to make my friends company a major project for GM. The kicker is the other higher up, the one who DIDNT discover my friend, for a long time did everything in his power to STOP him from coming on board. Stupid things like would block him out of meetings he was invited to by the other higher up. He didn't want his fellow VP (or whatever title the guy has) getting credit/promotion for finding my friend. This kind of thing happens all the time in bigger companies, not just GM.

So until the politics of GM, Ford, etc get put aside there's going to be problems all the way up the road to progress.

Take care,
Danny

 

[hedgehog]

Gavinsdad:

You forgot to mention how much you were compensated for working at your horrible "steelhouse" job.

Whatever it is/was, it is the very reason that Ford has to get relief from in order to survive.

You insult our intelligence with your whining story.

There are many courageous men and women serving in the middle east that will come home someday suffering with more serious health problems, and for a lot less pay and benefits.

They have no choice and I salute each and everyone one of them.

Your "story" only exemplifies the exessive greed the UAW represents.

Were you forced to work in the "steelhouse" or could you have quit at anytime prior? Nevermind, this is America, and we all have choices.

 

[ACE]

Great posts Lawerence.

I worked at an auto plant it was a forging plant we made I-beams, spindles and axles. Yes it was hot in the summer but it was nice in the winter. The work was dirty and noisey but the pay and benefits were great. Our plant worked on bonus so if you produced more than what was expected in a 8 hr shift you made more money.

I liked the pay did not mind the working conditions. But the attitude of many of my fellow employees was that Ford could do nothing or very little right. Some employees would by competitor products this was the minority thank goodness. One problem was job classification. Example if something happened to your machine you needed to go find the person who had the classification to fix your problem. Don't try to correct the problem yourself even though you may know what the problem was and could fix it yourself if you got caught you would have a been in trouble not by Ford but the union.

I vented enough.The work was hard but the compensation was tremendous.

Buy Ford and GM products they are still American firms and have their World Headquarters in the USA. I do not care that some of the products they make are out of the country. The profits come back to this country. I can not say that about Foreign owned companies even though they may have plants here.

 

[gavinsdad]

Well I see that there are still some people out there that need some education on the auto industry before they should be passing judgement.

My compensation for my job seems to be a hot topic. I made exactly $23.58 an hour. Here, I will do the math for you. That translates to just over $49,000.00 a year and that is the top of the pay scale for hourly workers where I worked. The severance that I will be recieving for voluntary separation after 7 years of service is a mere $50,000.00 before taxes, with 6 months of medical coverage after separation. I will not recieve any pension benefits as I did not have 10 years in as required to be pension-vested.

Now if you look at the other side of the coin, non-union foreign car manufacturers with final-assembly plants in the U.S. pay their hourly workforce an average of $25.18 an hour with a comparable benefit package to what I recieved as an hourly UAW worker. Unionized German hourly employees recieve an average of almost $30.00 an hour plus benefits and are the highest compensated autoworkers in the world. Do your homework, I did.

Yes I voluntarily took the job and I voluntarily stayed there for 7 years, and now I am voluntarily leaving. Call me greedy if you wish, but I think that a $50,000.00 severance package is not worth the 7 years of my life that I have put into it and the injuries that are going to follow me for the rest of my life. Those who have lost their lives doing it would probably agree.

I tip my hat to those who are serving my country in the middle-east and elsewhere, they are doing a job that I would not do for pay that is nowhere near what I recieved. But also take into consideration that theese veterans will recieve medical benefits for the rest of their lives and will recieve a pension after only four years of service. Also does the phrase "an Army of volunteers" mean anything to you? Last time that I checked they were not drafting anyone into millitary service.

Contrary to popular opinion of union autoworkers I do not have this extravigant lifestyle. I live in a small house in a working-class neighborhood and drive a pickup that I bought used for $12,000.00. My son attends public schools and wears clothes bought at K-Mart.

People seem to be under the impression that it is the wages of the hourly workforce that brought GM and Ford down. If that was the case then shouldn't all automakers with assembly plants in the U.S. be bankrupt? The reason that GM and Ford are bankrupt is because they put too many of their eggs in one basket with the large trucks and SUV's that bankrolled large profit margins over the last 15 years or so. The corporations became greedy and when petroleum futures hit all time highs, and light truck and SUV sales responded with all time lows, the industry was left scrambling to reduce operating costs and the easiest way for the CEO's to do that while retaining their multi-million dollar salaries was to cut labor costs. Talk about being greedy. Maybe they should have been more pro-active in diversifying their market base instead of relying on fat-cat profits from one division to hold up the entire corporation. Some people will never learn. Just as some people will always complain about the other side of the coin without doing their research first. Ignorance will always breed ignorance...

Maybe some people should learn how to spell before they try to express how intelligent they are. But then again, what do I know, I am just some over-compensated factory grunt.

 

[rollnthunder]

Well from what we have been told ford is cutting 30,000 assembly jobs and 14,000 white collar.And as for the buyouts they are nice my wife took one.She only had 6 years in at a plant that was visteon then went to the automotive componet holding.So she took the $100,000 and now ford says by 2008 all the plants that went to ACH will either be sold or closed.So im glade she was going to college while working at fords and she got the money.

 

[ACE]

Some CEO's may of made some mistakes in the auto industry but they cannot be held totally to blame just as the factory worker cannot be blamed for all the problems.

The average person does not get the opportunity to receive a severence package of $50,000 after only 7 years service or receive 6 months insurance benefits. Most people in other industries are notified that the plant will be closing with 0-90 days notice and you can go to the unemployment office. I believe that is why many people do not understand why auto workers complain.

I wish the auto workers that leave the industry well and maybe they will continue to buy GM and Ford products to help support the workers that are still at the company and all the people who have retired and are receiving pensions and medical benefits. That would show union solidarity.

 

[hedgehog]

gavinsdad:

Be proud.

You have attained the ulitmate goal of the UAW.

Getting cash and benefits for not showing up at your job.

Take the money and stop complaining.