American Axle CEO Wins
American Axle CEO Dick Dauch hung tough against the United Auto Workers (UAW) for 87 days. As the smoke clears, it's clear Dick Dastardly came out on top. The new union contract cuts the company's average hourly labor costs from $73 to about $40. The Detroit News reports that DD also sliced some 2k workers from AA's 3,650-member North American workforce. All in all, the parts maker will realize some $300m in annual savings. To help show these workers the door, AA secured some $215m worth of OPM from GM. That's roughly half the $450 to $500m tab. Meanwhile, AA shed some $370m in lost sales. Put those numbers against each other, and it looks like AA recovers its strike expenses in less than a year (excluding lost sales), and powers on from there. Meanwhile, Automotive News (sub) reports that AA has a $1.4b in backlogged orders to be filled between now and 2013. Mr Dauch celebrated the good news today by promoting his son, David Dauch, to the position of President.
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Has AA been a family business for a while, or did this guy just decide nepotism was due for a comeback? Not that it matters. If the stockholders aren't paying attention (which they aren't) they just hire each others kids at different companies.
I thought American Axel was a GM spin off from years gone by when they stopped making their own parts? How did sonny boy end up in the driver seat. More of this countries manufacturing offshored and demoted to keep some pricks wallets fat. It may not sound significant when you just look at one supplier, but its not isolated to just them, hard to sell cars to people who used to be your loyal customers if they cant afford them anymore because the economy sucks and you have cut their paycheck or job entirely.
And in Canada, Buzz did it to his own boys again... Great job buzz!!! http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080603/national/gm_cuts_workers