Chrysler threatens to take its jobs and go home

I should also note that retraining in the WSIB context is not completely useless -- it does generate some very good jobs for all the private consultants earning exorbitant income administering the workers' programs, not to mention all the private academies full of injured workers working diligently toward their diplomas that are not recognized anywhere on Earth.

Tommy_Paine wrote:

Just came from a Union Meeting.

Guess who got an 18 million dollar bonus just recently?

Ah, our good friend Lasorda.

Why has his head not been cast in wax, put on a pike, and paraded through the streets of Windsor?

Oh, that could still happen yet eh once this gets out. 

When Henry Ford paid the enormous sum of $5.00 a day to the workers in the Ford plants, his intent was to reduce employee turnover.  This had little consequence in that regard, so tough was the work, so awful the conditions.

It did, however have the unintended consequence of creating amoungst his employees, customers.  Add to this the contributions of the brothers Ruether a few decades later, and we see-- and enjoyed-- not just the auto manufacturing sector but manufacturing in general as the main mechanism for the redistribution of wealth in North America.

This is what is being torn down with no replacement mechanism offered in it's place.

If anyone but the most wealthy thinks they will not personally suffer real and severe adverse effects from this have not thought on the subject long enough.

torontoprofessor wrote:

As for the workers: I'm not advising paying them to be idle, but to retrain. Maybe severance was too quick: how about paying them to retrain?

How about we teach these workers a lesson on Value Added Production. Perhaps you could teach it. It is where we send all the value added production off shore, and we buy the finished goods with our new jobs as well paid Professors. 

Perhaps a good lesson in Capitalist greed, leveraging and cornering the market.  That is good. Its how you buy entire production facilities in Canada, and shut them down to eliminate competition.

Quote:

 

As for parts production: are you talking about Chrysler's parts production or other companies producing, in Canada, parts for Chrysler? If the former, then that would account for those 9000 jobs. If the latter, couldn't those companies continue to supply parts for Chrysler? Or is Chrysler also threatening to cease buying parts built, by other companies, in Canada?

Quote:

(What discipline I am in seems to me irrelevant to this discussion, where I am simply asking honest questions, and making surely fallible proposals. I am quite happy to be shown why such a proposal wouldn't work.)

Fair enough.

Sven wrote:

al-Qa'bong wrote:

Not only could we nationalize bloated dinosaurs like Chrysler and GM...

Just nationalize the whole of GM.  Like I said, you could buy the whole damned company for a paltry 35 dollars per Canadian.

'Course, you'd have all of those tens of billions of dollars of obligations to current and retired workers, but I'm sure you're up for making good on those obligations.

 

We'd have to anyway, albeit in other forms.  We could keep shovelling cash into their bottomless corporate pits and hope that they'll prudently take care of things, or we can shovel billions into government programs such as welfare and unemployment insurance when these companies go belly-up.

We could, alternatively, put money into something sustainable such as local manufactuing and research, and turn out cars that Canadian drivers will want to buy.

I think we are unduly harsh with Toronto Professor.  

It is not untill crisis that we realize just what manufacturing is.  It's not just machines.

It's a culture.

It is difficult to articulate what it is like to work in a factory.  Add to this the fact that technology has eclipsed what little popular conception did exist before, it's little wonder that people outside the culture do not grasp the significance of what is going on here.

It's a culture.  While the popular conception is of a guy repeatedly turning a screw all day on parts fed to him on a conveyor belt, it's hardly the reality.   Particularly with today's technology, workers need to be of the type who can learn on the fly, problem solve under pressure, and have some understanding regarding elements of many disciplines.

And, of course, the mental toughess to maintain concentration over hours. And days. And weeks. And years.  A talent that does not reside in the majority of people, but is frequent amoungst those who learned it from being raised in this culture.

That talent does not spring up on the land as easily as factories might be built on it.

It's all well and good to say we shouldn't be building cars that are fucking up the planet.  But who will build the electric cars?  Or any of the new "green" solutions?

And, if we don't, then we don't need robots and other cool machines.  And we won't need the electrical, mechanical and software engineers that build them.

And, of course, we won't need as many Professors to educate the people we no longer have a need for.

DrConway wrote:

Are you denying that the Canadian government, in taking ownership of the auto companies instead of bailing them out, would be unable to retool these companies to reposition them for far more environmentally-sensitive vehicles that would...

sell well and make them a profit?

I'm not denying that it is theoretically possible.  But, I'd bloody well like to see the Canadian government try to do it.  I'm confident that it would be highly entertaining to watch.

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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

Sven wrote:

You must be joking.  $255K could get you the finest education at the most expensive private universities on the planet.

No one is talking about sending the Chrysler workers around the planet to private universities.

The proposal was to continue to pay them for one year and give them retraining, for $255K. I explained that won't come even close to allowing them to replace their previous wages.

See here's the thing Sven: you want them to still maybe feed their families over this multi- year program I am describing? Maybe try to hold onto their house? Pay for daycare while they're in school? So then you need to give them some reasonable portion of their previous income while they're attending the program. And how about after if they're lucky enough to start a job in a new field, at entry level wages for the first three or five years. Should they lose their house then, or do we continue to pay them a part of the difference between what they're getting now and what they had before?

Gotta pay the bottom-feeders too, the consultants who cut and paste the useless cookie-cutter plans together then crack the whip at workers once a month, for $75 an hour, with travel time.

Many of these plans for high wage-earners amount to $600,00 - $800,000.

Well Sven, but you have your arrogance to draw on too, don't you.

I know several people who send their kids to private universities, like Notre Dame, and spend $40,000 a year for the pleasure.  I look at them like they are insane.  And that's $160,000 for a four-year degree.

In contrast, one of my 18 year old nieces will be starting at the University of Minnesota this fall.  Her tuition for a year is going to be about $10,000 (so, roughly $45,000 in tuition for a four-year degree).  She wants to be a pharmacist and will earn about $100,000 out of school and, yet, colleges can't produce pharmacists fast enough.

Trade school?  The tuition is even less here locally.  If I didn't want to get a college degree, I'd learn a trade like plumbing and open my open shop.

But, $355K is too paltry for retraining?  Indeed.

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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

OMG what an awesome idea -- let's fire 9,000 right-wing lawyers at a shot and get them all to try to become plumbers. Let them focus on the back end of what they have produced in their former life.

So Sven, sounds like you think $25 an hour is an outrageously high wage. We are wrong to want workers to continue to earn this unreasonable level of income. So what do you think they should be satisfied with? $20? Guess what: it's still give or take the same plan. $15? Same jobs, smaller more marginal workplaces. Or, at that leve, maybe they can all be customer service representatives? For products that are no longer being manufactured and which no one in Windsor will be able to buy?

It makes no sense for the specific reason that the majority of those 9,000 workers will be fucked, no matter how much you spend on retraining or other whitewash, unless and until manufacturing or similar good jobs are made available -- as we have been saying.

Which brings us back to public ownership.

Sven wrote:

triciamarie wrote:

Which brings us back to public ownership.

Like I've said several times, I think it would be keen if Canada was to purchase, say, GM (it would cost less than $20 per Canadian to get control of the company) and then run it however Canada saw fit.

And as has been pointed out before, Canada gets to (a) dump significant multiples of that into that beast in order to honour the various retirement  benefits that are unfunded (b) either (i) cut much [most??] of the workforce in any case since it makes no sense to produce cars that they can't sell or (ii) pour even more tax dollars into the company to produce cars that can't be sold and which will simply end up in a parking lot somewhere.

Quote:

It would be entertaining to watch a bunch of bureaucrats running a car company.

LMAO

At this point, they couldn't do worse than what the buerocracy of GM has done.   GM, btw, is more buerocratic than government.  And so is Ford. Try to make a small change to a shop drawing.  Most part suppliers wouldn't even try.  

Years ago, we started putting stickers on our parts, at Ford's request.  They assist in part match ups.   The document with the specifications for the stickers was over twenty pages long.  Printed both sides in ten point font.

Some here might remember the Ford "Pinto", or as I call them "Chariots of Fire."   Some engineer put the differential right behind the gas tank, and no one thought to beef up the rear bumper.  The result was that in low speed rear end collisions, the differential would bash into the gas tank,  not just rupturing it, but pressurising the gas first, so that when the tank did rupture, it sprayed atomized gasoline everywhere-- including sometimes the passenger compartment.

When this came to light, an engineer devised a plastic shield to put on the tank.  But, the shield would have added about ten bucks to the sticker price.

The Ford legal department advised that it would be cheaper to settle the law suits arising from the shieldless Pintos.

Which it might have been.  Except that the negative publicity from such a sociopathic decision making process hurt Ford sales for over a decade.

Government buerocracies are no more or less efficient or murderous than those we see in action in Private Enterprise.

Hmm.

There's a commonality though.  Can you guess what it is, Sven?

One other note about the "paltry" $355K figure: If 9,000 people were to each receive $355K, that would be a total expenditure of $3.195 billion.  Now, we don't know the market value of Chrysler (because it is privately-held) but, for the sake of discussion, let's say it's roughly worth what GM is worth.  The total value of GM, as of last Friday, is $1.66 billion. 

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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

"Toyota would eat a bureaucrat-run auto company for lunch, much as they have with GM."

 Funny that. Toyota is losing scads of money even as we speak, and are making noises about bellying up to the bail out bar with the boys at GM and Chrysler.

I think you guessed my little riddle.

If we follow the chain of command up any buerocracy, we will ultimately run into lawyers at, or very near the top.  There, in a nice, tight economic tautology they create the laws and rules that make them artificially indespensible.

As if society owed them a spectacular living.

Tommy_Paine wrote:

Funny that. Toyota is losing scads of money even as we speak, and are making noises about bellying up to the bail out bar with the boys at GM and Chrysler.

Well, obviously, all of the auto manufacturers, worldwide, are being hurt significantly by this downturn.  But, prior to September '08, Toyota was humming along and GM was, at best, in an ever-slowing limp with a audible death rattle.

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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

abnormal wrote:

It's not their fault but, if the government were to take over a Chrysler (or worse yet a GM) they'd be stuck with these liabilities.  And they'd be faced with a choice - honour them and spend far more in the process than was spent purchasing the company or walk.

You keep implying those are lump sum obligations.

They're not, as any pension fund manager or person who studies the CPP will tell you. They're yearly obligations.

The CPP is largely funded on a cash-in, cash-out basis except for that part invested in the stock market (say, how's that brilliant idea doing, by the way?), and pension funds themselves ensure a flow of funds from whatever investments are made to ensure that their current obligations are met.

abnormal wrote:

However, private pensions funds are required by law to be fully funded. 

What do you mean by that?

Private defined benefit pension plans are allowed to amortize and liquidate solvency deficits over five years - and employers' lobby groups are right now (this week) asking the government to extend that to 10 years.

As for "going concern" deficits, employers have 15 years to pay those off. And those are the deficits that actually "matter", in the sense of reflecting the shortfall of receipts vs. expenses. Solvency only matters on plan windup, which presumably would not happen if the government threw the billionaires' sorry derrières out of Canada and took over the operation itself.

Could you clarify your statement, please?

Tommy_Paine wrote:

I think we are unduly harsh with Toronto Professor.  

It is not untill crisis that we realize just what manufacturing is.  It's not just machines.

It's a culture.

It is difficult to articulate what it is like to work in a factory.  Add to this the fact that technology has eclipsed what little popular conception did exist before, it's little wonder that people outside the culture do not grasp the significance of what is going on here.

It's a culture.  While the popular conception is of a guy repeatedly turning a screw all day on parts fed to him on a conveyor belt, it's hardly the reality.   Particularly with today's technology, workers need to be of the type who can learn on the fly, problem solve under pressure, and have some understanding regarding elements of many disciplines.

And, of course, the mental toughess to maintain concentration over hours. And days. And weeks. And years.  A talent that does not reside in the majority of people, but is frequent amoungst those who learned it from being raised in this culture.

That talent does not spring up on the land as easily as factories might be built on it.

It's all well and good to say we shouldn't be building cars that are fucking up the planet.  But who will build the electric cars?  Or any of the new "green" solutions?

And, if we don't, then we don't need robots and other cool machines.  And we won't need the electrical, mechanical and software engineers that build them.

And, of course, we won't need as many Professors to educate the people we no longer have a need for.

Ok Tommy, you did such a great job, I will back off on being so harsh on the Professor. You hit a home run in my ball park. I congratulate you for spelling out the culture so clearly.

We need your input on other forums where people are just as ignorant in understanding manufacturing in Canada.

Heard a bit on CBC radio last week comparing/contrasting GM & Toyota. In 2007 the two companies made and sold almost exactly the same number of cars. GM lost 3-4 thousand on each unit sold, while Toyota made about $2000 per unit. GM owns 7 private corporate jets, Toyota flies comercial. The head of GM made as much in salary and bonuses (while his company was losing its shirt) as the top 37 people at Toyota did (while they were doing well).

So yah, lets exclusively blame the men and women on the line. It's all the fault of those greedy unions. Did either of those groups have anything to do with the company building the wrong types of vehicles?Why do I hear our government saying that consessions from the unions are a prerequisite for any financial help, but they say nothing about their fatcat friends at the top?

Unionist, abnormal thinks companies actually care that it's technically illegal to switch a pension plan from defined benefit to defined contribution so the CEO can abscond with the funds. You'll probably get some bafflegab in response to your statement.

DrConway wrote:

Unionist, abnormal thinks companies actually care that it's technically illegal to switch a pension plan from defined benefit to defined contribution so the CEO can abscond with the funds. You'll probably get some bafflegab in response to your statement.

Abnormal often posts in this forum taking a dim view of unions. Now he is warning, over and over, against either pouring money into the auto industry or expropriating it. I generally listen when he speaks, because there's logic in his posts. But I didn't follow his point on pensions. That's why I put in my comment and am hoping he will clarify. Maybe I got it wrong?

I wish regulation of another sort could be possible - namely, that auto ownership be set up in such a way that anyone purchasing a motor vehicle enters into a legal contract to keep that vehicle properly maintained and on the road for a fixed period of time before trading up to a different vehicle - say five years. It frankly makes no sense for some car owners to trade in their vehicle after just one, two, or three years. Under my plan, failure to maintain the vehicle properly would result in a fine under an escalator cause - a higher fine for a second offense, and after three strikes, you lose custody of the vehicle altogether.