When was the last time you heard any of these executives offering to take a pay cut or refusing a bonus to preserve their company’s future?

On this topic, FoMoCo released information about executives' 2006 earnings today:

CEO Alan Mulally: $28.18 million compensation in 2006, including an $18.5 million bonus. This includes a $7.5 million hiring bonus and $11 million to offset the compensation he gave up when he left Boeing. Other compensations totaled $334,433, which included $172,974 for use of the corporate aircraft, and $55,469 for relocation costs and temporary housing.  And that was just for three months in 2006, folks!

El Presidente de los Americas Mark Fields: $5.57 million total compensation

CFO Don Leclair: $4.4 million

Bill Ford: $0 as per his agreement to work for nothing until the company turned around. The company took an expense of $9.95 million, however, related to his previous stock and option awards. At least Little Billy won't have to end up living on beans and cornbread.

The aforementioned Studebaker Avanti, which was supposed to be the start of an entire new generation of cars, was built in various incarnations – the Studebaker engine was gone, early on, replaced by a GM V8, but the Lark chassis survived into the Eighties – until 1991. (In fact, some guys in Georgia, reportedly had brought the Avanti back, a few years ago, accordng to an article in Old Cars Weekly; but I haven’t read anything since then about that effort.)

Studebakers, especially the Hawks, are rapidly appreciating at collector car auctions, as too are the few remaining Larks that were fitted with high-peformance variantions of the venerable 289 cid V8.

Admittedly, I have never owned a Studebaker. But from what I recall reading, the old factory oftentimes had several generations of workers employed. I believe the workers did their job. It just got to the point where, as the old sayings goes, “they killed the goose that laid the golden egg.” Well, there was that, and the fact that once the word gets out that a car company is going away, and consumers fear lack of product support, it becomes a self-fufilling prophecy. Likely, this is what will do in GM, Ford or Chrysler, in the next few years.

Yes, you are right: We are “twins”.

Precisely my joke.

I have been posting here since day one that the 1935 Wagner Act is at the ROOT of all of 2.625’s problems.

But, OTOH, rational considerations are often labelled as “evil”, “selfish”, “greedy”… it is not by chance that Economics is called (by not-so-rational folks, I must say) “the dismal science”.

Well, it is not “dismal” at all. It is a basic Science for productiveness, wealth and happines.

And not, I am not an Economist.

I was joking Spanish guy! rational=evil…Is a joke.

Ehrrr… why “evil”?.

Just say “unpopular”. I am not “evil”, Luther, I am rational.

Suppose EVERYBODY on the face on Earth gets unionized, UAW style.

The result?: EVERYTHING is more expensive. Not a big surprise, really. We are back at square one.

Unionized workers gain benefits only if there are NO-Unionized workers paying Unionized wages (as prices) as consumers and being paid NO-Unionized wages as producers.

To sum up bluntly: Unionized workers are leeches on the backs of NO-Unionized workers.

Henry Hazzlitt explained it very well at his classic “Economics in one lesson”. Please read (its a pleasure of clarity) Chapter 20 “Do Unions Really Raise Wages?”: http://jim.com/econ/contents.html

The Gov’t-worshipers tell us to think FDR was a great man when in fact he did sooo much damage to individual freedom/property rights in the US. A Mr. Fusion powered Bugatti Veyron affordable to the masses would be a reality today if the Populist-parasite FDR…Well….

I dont think the transplant company employees would except a union since they see what is going on in Detroit. Using threats of violence will put you in the unemploymant line over time and make you unemployable as well. I worked at a major telecom company and a telecom union tried to “organize” us… They got nowhere… This is the US south afterall.

We do not get it, fellas: The UAW is a meta car brand. Please see http://www.uaw.org/uawmade/auto/2007/index.cfm

Hey, Robert: It is not the magnificent “Buick Terraza”, but the “UAW Buick Terraza”.

UAW members, customers are voting with their wallets, or, as Henry Ford said:

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.

…or who does NOT. You forgot to nail this point, Henry.

The 2.345743 are NOT “GM”, “Ford” and “Chrysler”, BUT “GM”, “Ford” and “Chrysler” plus the UAW.

And, do you know who is to blame?: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the Americans who voted him.

The big 2.5. lost control over their factories in the 1935 (the “Wagner act” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Act).

Look at these happy thugs, after gaining control over other person´s property: http://www.reuther.wayne.edu/pic/sitdown/strikend.gif

A now look at the Fisher factory, 70 years later http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Buickcityflint.JPG

I really, really would like to know more about how transplant manufacturers in the U.S.A. avoid the metastasizing of the UAW cancer. Could you illuminate us about this fascinating issue, R.F.?.

The end is near, and it's about time.

I think the UAW/CAW are the last stand for unions in N. America. They are pricing themselves out of a job indeed.

I live in a small city (120,000) and a major employer closed it's doors a couple years ago. Tobacco industry. Heavily unionized. The employees were paid enormous salaries, to the point that they closed the doors and shipped production down to Mexico. Now all these people are out of work.

I blame them, not the company. I don't feel sorry for them at all. A job is a priviledge, not a right. It's survival of the fittest.

I hear ya. I was in the big meeting room at launch one time waiting for my turn to get my ass kicked. One of the trim guys was complaining that the door trim panels were too hard to install (they were actually pretty easy to install, I thought, after having done about 50 car stereo installs in my day.)

So when door trim supplier guy asked “Well, what do you want?” the mfg engineer said “I want to be able to throw it at the door and have it stick!”

That’s the state of the Detroit automakers these days in a nutshell.

In a post (rant) last year I detailed what a UAW Plant Chairman in a Big 2.34569 plant is paid per the contract. I’m not doing the math again, but here it is in a nutshell:

12 hours a day, 365 days a year, at the highest rate of pay in the plant (Tool/Die Maker, roughly $32) at midnight shift premium (10%). Now 12 hours means 8 hours straight time, plus 4 hours at time and a half (6 more hours pay) for a total of 18 hours pay at $32 * 1.1 = ? Sundays and holidays are 12 hours at double time for 24 hours pay * 1.1 = ?

So in the end that means that the Chairman is paid at least $250K/yr. For doing nothing. A stressfull job to be sure these days, though.

In another example I sought a tool change to remove an assembly aid which would have saved ~ $3 million/year. Manufacturing simply refused to work on it.

These instances were indicative of the nature of the relationship between manufacturing and design engineering. And, no one could override manufacturing’s decisions, up to and including VPs.

It became especially frustrating when the powers that be forced product development to nickel and dime parts with definite risk to quality, while huge savings potential existed that didn’t affect part content or quality.

I would highly doubt IF GM or any of the big 2.5 do file for bankruptcy they will void the warranties on their vehicles. That would be one the stupidest moves they could make, piss off people that actualy buy their vehicles by not honoring the warranty. So many other things would happen before they say your warranty is no good.

I don’t know about benefits, but according to their April 2006 LM-2 filing with the Department of Labor, total salaries and disbursements for UAW executives in 2005 were:

Pres Ron Gettelfinger: $156,278
Sec/Treas Mary Bunn: $153,263
Various Vice Presidents: $140,888 to $142,610
Various Regional Directors: $128,356 to $148,766

Other Employees:

Clerk typists: $49,726 to $55,365
Stenographers: $52,812 to $54,707
Organizer: $111,763
Bookkeeper: $59,042
System analysts: $107,773 to $111,760
Retiree representative: $114,345
HVAC operator: $80,476
Administrative assistants: $120,697 to $137,817

I’ll leave it to our readers in Detroit to let us know if these salaries are out of line with comparable jobs in that area (union and non-union).

What’s the point in working for Delphi anymore? You might as well strike. There’s nothing to lose. The workers already have obligations: mortgage, kids college, bills. How will all that be paid for with $14/hr.? Time to strike & bring ‘em down. If the company can’t afford the labor, they have failed.

Hyundai is a company bedeviled by labor unrest and management scandals involving bribery and more. Just because we don’t often read Korean business news in the US doesn’t mean that there aren’t things to worry about there as well!

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200603/kt2006032717033411990.htm

My wife and I are looking to replace our aging minivan with a new car, preferably a small to midsized SUV. After much research, and looking at a recent autoshow, the Saturn Outlook made my short list. Nice looking vehicle, and I can get a GM discount via my MIL. Not to mention a good friend recently got one and is very happy with it.

I now have serious reservations about buying a car from a company who may be bankrupt sometime within the warranty period. This is a big expense for us, and I don’t want to be throwing my money away. I guess I’ll go with the (very close) #2 choice, a Hyundai Santa Fe.

The UAW blokes who know nothing but fighting may have some lessons to learns as well. I wonder what kind of pay and benefits the UAW bosses are giving themselves to represent the working man and woman?

Corruption and self-dealing seem to be everywhere in this game. While the home teams consume themselves the visitors are cleaning up.

That is the crux of the matter.