This American Life Takes On NUMMI (With A Little Help From TTAC)

Thanks Ed for posting this. Being Canadian I don't get NPR very readily and this was a treat.

I never miss an episode of This American Life, and this one was especially gripping. Edward Niedermeyer deserves credit for contributing to this particular episode. I especially appreciate the even handed approach that placed the blame with both management and the UAW. There is nothing more sad than a tremendous unrealized potential, and I can't help but wonder where GM would be today if they had been able to change their culture. It was as though several people in the organization had the power to travel through time, and see the future, but they were powerless to stop the events that were to unfold. As a union member, I felt proud of what unionized American labor could accomplish in the presence of a little bit of leadership and direction. I drove my Geo Prism during most of my time in college and well after that during my first job. After I sold my Geo Prism, which was over 10 years old, and with 150,000 miles, I wasn't especially surprised to later learn that it made it to a quarter million miles and was still running strong. Based on my experience, my mom bought a Chevy Prism, and it's over 10 years old to this day has been extremely reliable, as has my dad's Toyota Tacoma built in the same plant. I wonder what the future holds for a post bankruptcy GM. Sure, cars like the Malibu make it seem as though they have turned the corner, but I thought the same thing when they opened their plant in Spring Hill, TN. Regardless, every one on the board of directors should be required to listen to this story. It confirms everything I heard from GM workers, and as an American taxpayer, I hope they are capable of learning from their past mistakes.

Just finished listening to this...very informative and entertaining account that never lost my attention. It's obvious Toyota had their motives for cooperating with GM (to see how their production system would work in an American factory) but I still consider their outstretched hand of friendship and cooperation to be extremely refreshing moment in corporate history. It's too bad that in addition to being too big to fail, GM was also too big to function as a single cohesive unit with the production reforms that were needed to stop the precipitous market share drop. Their failure to remain competitive in segments where Toyota began to dominate made it almost too easy for Toyota, hence their eventual and ironic shift to the same emphasis on quantity over quantity that cooked GM's goose.

It's the same old canard of blaming GM for the closing of NUMMI. GM production only accounted for 10% of production. 15% at its peak. After GM stopped odering Vibes back in Aug 09, we were working overtime making 100% Toyotas. The vast majority of the revenues come from selling Toyotas. NUMMI is a Toyota plant. Toyota could've bought GM's share of NUMMI for pennies on the dollar after GM filed for bankruptcy. Toyota had $39.4 billion in cash as of 9/30/09 and could've easily bought the other half for chump change, but they decided not to. It was Toyota's decision to shut down NUMMI. Toyota shut down NUMMI because it is their only union plant. Wages at Toyota's other plants are pegged to NUMMI's to keep out the UAW. With NUMMI out of the way, Toyota is free to lower wages and benefits at their other plants. The closing of NUMMI is a union busting event.