wages have created the middle class and reducing their pay to the likes of a Wal-Mart worker creates a further divide between the rich and the poor.

 

Having worked in the auto industry for 12 years I can say I agree with a lot of your points. A couple of misconceptions though. If you think the wages are too high then you never worked for an American auto maker. The jobs are mind numbing and back breaking. Sure, the operator is getting paid $27hr as compared to American Honda paying $20 but what you do not see is how much extra is added to that job. Ford would hire production workers 50 at a time to fill 20 positions because even at such a high rate of pay and benefits half would quit within the first week. Another 20% the next. I have personally seen people climb the back fence (8 ft high with barbed wire) to avoid going back to the line.

 

Chain, what about automation...are Honda plants more automated then its American counterparts?

 

its not the current salaries that are killing GM as much as the unreal benefits packages, and retirement plans that cost an ungodly amount.



i happen to work for a car dealership where we sell BOTH Chevy and Toyota. its obivous why GM and Ford are in the tank, its due to business practices from top to bottom, and the UAW.

Toyota is run efficiently, and puts its money into the right ideas, forward thinking, not age old ideas that they force on customers.....


note to self: when asking for a multi billion dollar buyout, don't show up in your own separate private jets.....

 

I wonder if we're gonna start seeing Yugos driving around the US if the company tanks.

 

They no longer make Yugos.

 

I worked at the now defunct Atlanta Assembly Plant and wewon the Harbor Award practically every year. That is for being the most efficient auto plant in North America ... incl Mex and Can. So I assume we were about as automated as the others. Never saw the inside of a Honda assembly plant but did work for a couple weeks as a temp in their stamping plant. Seemed roughly the same production worker wise. They actually had a few more maint/production than we did ( I am maint).

And Hayden hit it on the head. Even while working for Ford I would not buy their cars for myself. Dealers treated me like **** ... twice! Called the 1800BITCH number and they tell me they couldn't do anything ... and it was a frikkin foreigner on the phone[:@] So from that point on I bought other vehicles.

 

maybe this problem will open eyes in big buisness. be smart with your dollar. the higher execs at these companies make way to much and do so very little for the very company they work for. hate to say it but a bail out prob. wont change anything. its the hand on the stove lesson in wich good learning is spawned. these companies are to top heavy , let them topple and start over with good decisions. the execs will be the ones lookin for jobs, not the floor workers.

 

Ford says CEO will work for $1 to get gov't loans
(12-02) 10:27 PST DETROIT (AP)

 

others should follow his example. still leary though. can anyone say slush fund?