UAW May Pull Plug on FCA Work at Any Time

It makes me sad that Wayne will lose jobs (and it will, regardless of spin by Ford or the UAW), but they were on borrowed time anyway. That plant would already be closed if it weren't for the ATVM loan program. I do know a few guys that were at Wixom that work at Wayne, but most chose to go to, when Wixom closed or more recently from other plants, DTP. They knew what the future held for MAP.

@bball40dtw bball, but that is the adversarial nature of unions in America. The unions will stop at nothing and drive their employers into a financial grave. GM and Chrysler come to mind. The shareholders and owners take all the risks and the worker bees want to reap all the benefits without taking any risks themselves. If union-people don't think they're getting paid what they are worth, they should seek work elsewhere. Simple as that.

@highdesertcat The fall of Wayne has little to do with unions. A bullet would have been put in it's head during "The Way Forward" if it wasn't making a product that was pure profit for Ford (Expedition/Navigator). It also would have died during Carmeggedon if Ford didn't receive a $550 million loan to retool it. Right now it makes small, fuel efficient vehicles that Americans aren't buying. Cuatitlan has lost a bunch of product, is down to just the Fiesta (which will be leaving), and it needs a small car because Mexico has FTAs with everybody and their mother. Wayne is the odd plant out. If you play my favorite Sesame Street game, Wayne is the thing that isn't the same.

@bball40dtw It's always sad to see jobs lost in America. But, we, the people, have to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the direction we take our nation in. We elect our representatives who establish national economic policy. We Americans deserve exactly what we got, because we voted for it. Forcing Americans into Europeanizing their cars and their driving mentality was just bad karma. It is America's exceptionalism that got us ahead, won WWII and gave us our enviable lifestyle. All we heard from the alarmists was that we would be running out of oil. Hence the trend toward smaller, lighter, more fuel efficient cars. They were wrong, as so many others voiced simultaneously that we had plenty of oil. People, no matter where, will buy the best they can afford, and little sardine cans on wheels just aren't it. Maybe in Europe and Asia, but not in America where many households have three, four or five cars. The UAW is only interested in collecting dues, without regard to what is good for America. And as long as some working people are gullible enough to buy into that UAW shpiel, the UAW will always have their pitchmen to sell this crap to the unsuspecting members.

mullaly never worked for home depot bob nardelli drove homepo into the ground then was asked to front chrysler during the cerberus (3 headed hound of hell) years. mullaly was the CEO of boeing and from what i understand, did a decent job there. i think boeing has learned that outsourcing/offshoring isnt always a great idea.

@highdesertcat so let workers be shareholders. except the UAW doesnt design turds like the old sebring, etc.

@highdesertcat GM and chrysler? ford is union too. what it boils down to is they were designing crap nobody wanted. calibers, sebrings, ssrs, cobalts. the UAW also did not design the ignition switches or airbags. there are auto maker unions the world over, but the UAW is the only bad one.

@SoCalMikester Couple things 1. Automakers are in the business ultimately to make money. I know for a fact GM did not want to build those type of models because they lost money on every single one. The automakers were forced too by dot gov and its regulations. If you think for a second any automaker wants to lose millions in a segment year after year vs producing only for profitable ones, think again. 2. SSR was created to give the Reatta (later Lansing) Craft Centre something to do. The Craft Centre was a UAW plum job, it might not have existed at all if not for UAW leverage in the 80s. 3. True UAW did not design poor ignition switches or airbags full of shrapnel. One might argue the financial drain caused the domestics to cut corners, although we will never know.

@bball40dtw highdesertcat - if you are referring to the Japanese portion of WWII then I'd agree but if one is looking at the German side of WWII then I'd have to disagree. The USA contributed greatly to the German side of WWII but since the USA has traditionally been anti-communist history has been slanted (in the USA) to downplay the USSR's involvement. 75% of German soldiers died on the Russian front. The Russians lost millions of people. It took the USSR, the British Commonwealth and the USA to end the German side of WWII. The USA's ramping up of production for WWII and not having a destroyed country to rebuild gave it a huge advantage over other countries that were decimated by WWII. That if anything is what pushed the USA to the forefront as an Industrial Powerhouse. A large percentage of manufacturing jobs have been lost to automation. You can blame the UAW and offshoring but in reality that does not account for most lost jobs. One source cited only 10% of jobs have been lost in the USA due to offshoring. Unions leaders aren't much different than any politically motivated leader. They make all sorts of promises to get in and to stay in power. They live large when times are good and blame everyone else when things go bad.

Part of it was that people wanted better for their kids. My dad did his d@mnedest to keep me out of the concrete. 40 years in that stuff has taken a toll on his body that only modern medicine can fix. I never became a concrete finisher, but I ran the business for 10 years. I make sure to thank him for that as often as possible.

"Had we as many trade school grads as we do liberal arts grads, perhaps that gaping void that was once occupied by the middle class might be filled a bit and generate some change among now-destructive unions such as the UAW." Spoken like someone who has not spent his adult life making a living by doing manual labor. I'm one of those liberal arts grads and I'm lucky to have spent my adult life as a knowledge worker, and it's left me with a body that works about as well as could be hoped for my age. However, I have several friends and family who have worked in the trades, and none of them have avoided work-related physical conditions that have left them at least moderately crippled and gulping down pain killers or seeking surgeries to let them keep working. There's a reason that our working-class parents pushed us into higher ed, and I don't begrudge manual laborers their higher pay to go with their carpal-tunnel, fused vertebrae or blown-out knees.

@ClutchCarGo My dad retired a few years ago and had two knee replacements, surgery on both of his ankles, and has arthritis. I'll pass on all that.

People here still act like it was the UAW that brought down Chrysler and GM. I'm guessing very few of them have run and owned a company employed union laborers. While I haven't had direct dealings with the UAW, I have had plenty with the OPCMIA AFL-CIO. God forbid people want to have retirement plans, medical insurance, a living wage, training opportunities, and pride in their work.

@bball40dtw Sorry - a "living wage" isn't $28/hr for a high school education and no transferable skills. Unions exist (in part) to distort the relationship between pay, skill set, and demand for services.

@bball40dtw "God forbid people want to have retirement plans, medical insurance, a living wage, training opportunities, and pride in their work." Do non-union American Honda and Toyota employees have these things? How about non-union white-collar professionals? If yes, why is their availability a union issue?

@SCE to AUX We can always argue that some people get paid too much or some too little. There are many unionized and non-unionized professions that I think are underpaid or overpaid. There will always be someone somewhere in this world that will do your job for less than you will. Unions exist for other reasons, but I never said what people should make or that I fully support every union. I didn't have any cement masons on my crews making $28 an hour. Partnering with OPCMIA allowed me to get better workers that were trained (or going though training), reliable, care about their job, and allowed my company to do better work. Full disclosure, I also owned a non union shop because I was disadvantaged price on some jobs competing against non-union work. I was tired of losing bids over $500-$1000 in labor costs and not having work for my crew. I kept my guys pay the same for the most part.

@bikegoesbaa I'll admit that the benefits portion of my argument doesn't translate well to domestics vs transplants, but it does in other industries. In some professions, non union shops do not have these options. The trades is a common one. I was often competing against companies that did $hit work with $10-$12/hour laborers that were paid in cash. I understand why a cement mason or coke oven operator would want a union. It is hard work that tears your body up by the time you are in your 50s. No, unions are not the be all end all and are not perfect. I think collective bargaining has both positives and negatives. I support the ability of people to collectively bargain though. If they think it is in their best interest to do so, more power to them. If they don't think they need a union, that's great too.

Other than pragmatism, why did UAW agree to Tier II in the first place? Shouldn't the whole solidarity thing have kicked in at the time and old timers given up a bit for the new kids on the block?

@28-Cars-Later Because they were f@cked and they own a piece of the pie now. The guys that had been around weren't going to take that kind of a pay cut ($15K-$25K), but the UAW had to sell them something. Therefore, we have Tier II wages. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but other options were limited at the time.

@bball40dtw I was off teaching a class and came back to this debate. For the most part it's really an argument about class and who 'deserves' what. It's something that this crowd feels they have a right to decide and be the arbiters of. It's interesting to watch them dance around the topics in really unconvincing ways by pointing at the transplants while ignoring the accepted view of building in these rural communities allows them to tap a workforce that is locally overpaid but industry-wide underpaid. It's exploitation that they don't get because they're caught up in the class argument and think that they're the ones holding the coin to which they beg for when they're just the ones not begging today.

bball40dtw - I have to agree that there are pros and cons to unions and collective bargaining. These discussions end up divided by political ideology. Doctrine/belief to most people matter much more than fact and/or reality.

@SCE to AUX "Unions exist (in part) to distort the relationship between pay, skill set, and demand for services." I think another reason for their existence is to provide a weapon for disenfranchised smarties like, in a minor way, Xerenar to do battle with silver-spoon smarties in the struggle for wealth and influence. Either way, exploited dummies remain exploited. I see complete moral equivalence here.

@Xeranar People in areas without opportunities become exploited when they gain opportunities. This is what you just danced around. You might find yourself unable to avoid the conclusion that you've been wrong about everything. While you're at it, look into how UAW workers defend their horrible work habits and attitudes by saying that they're trapped in jobs they hate because they're paid a multiple of what they could earn anywhere else with their skills.

@CJinSD What is there to say? Congrats Normal, Ohio you helped a multi-billion dollar corporation get cheaper work because you continued to live in a small community in an isolated location? It is all framing I recognize but lets get this straight: They're being exploited because they're paid less than the industry average. It's how the system works and your continued joy in serfdom makes me wonder what good are you as a capitalist let alone a socialist...