Labor Laughs at GM – Chrysler Merger

by Edward Niedermeyer

Published: October 15th, 2008

Automotive News [sub] reports that United Auto Workers (UAW) chief Ron Gettelfinger is against the nevergonnahappen GM-Chrysler merger. Sort of. “I personally would not want to see anything that would result in a consolidation if that would mean the elimination of additional jobs,” Gettelfinger said. “But until we get into actual discussions, we can’t just speculate on what is going to happen. We have to know the situation, and then we can deal with it.” New CAW President Ken Lawenza is holding off on making any “if”-dependent statements on the matter until getting more details from GM and ChryCo. “We have already tried to contact the companies. We’re waiting for calls back,” Lewenza tells Reuters. Ken could be waiting for a while though, because the two firms probably haven’t even worked out the deal’s details yet. If there is a deal. Which there probably isn’t. Reaction on the other side of the pond is equally supportive…

In fact, organized labor the world over is taking a dump all over the speculation. Automotive News Europe [sub] tells us that the top labor rep for GM Europe is against a merger as well, for the same obvious reasons. “GM would only raise its own problems to a higher power. Chrysler has nothing that GM does not have already,” Klaus Franz tells Handelsblatt. “(Combining) two people with bad feet does not create a marathon runner, and with Cerberus there would be a third sick person on board,” he added, referring to Chrysler’s majority owner, Cerberus Capital Management. The labor boys are generally on-point here, since a merger would certainly mean job loss and a larger, less healthy company. What they don’t seem to understand is that jobs will probably be lost anyway, and that their over-zealous advocacy has helped bring Chrysler and GM to the current FUBAR situation. But by all means, keep insulting your employers.

Edward Niedermeyer

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2 of 4 comments

Hltguy on Oct 15, 2008

Wow, that photo reminds me of the 60's, The Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore. Peace.

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SunnyvaleCA on Oct 15, 2008

Chrysler's legacy costs alone could swamp the combined bank accounts of GM and Chrysler. GM's legacy costs alone would do the same. Two separate companies means two chances to duck out of legacy costs and have something survive. A combined company means just 1 chance to duck out of both costs in order to survive. So, looks like the odds of something surviving would be cut by a factor of 4 if they combine.

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