Posted on 07/14/2008 2:56:02 PM PDT by Westlander
Southfield (WWJ) -- General Motors is preparing to announce a major downsizing and restructuring moves Tuesday in response to falling U.S. sales.
A statement from the company says Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will discuss the changes at a news conference at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Before the news conference, Wagoner will address employees. The company released no further details.
(Excerpt) Read more at wwj.com ...
It’s going to get out of the car business entirely and into healthcare for its Union retirees.
Yep, I guess they were just lucky to survive for 40 years.
/sarc
They milked the SUV/Truck cow for far too long and now must restructure.
Brankruptcy is their BEST move right now. They need to invalidate all contractual agreements with the UAW (especially pension/healthcare for retirees) and re-evaluate all working contracts.
What are they gonna do now?
Go into the mortgage business?
Yeah, that’s the ticket.........
This goes back to Ried and Pelosi.....
Probably so. Also, since the federal government is in full tilt bailout mode, methinks a bailout of some sort for GM is likely.
“What are they gonna do now?
Go into the mortgage business?”
Did you forget the sarcasm tag? They have been in the mortgage business for decades.
At last! American-made bicycles again!
Chevy Scooters!
Hummer 2WD Segway!
GM to manufacture Segway scooters!!!!!!
They ought to can a bunch of the management as well - not just the union guys.
Unions didn’t get anything the company didn’t give them.
There was no problem financing benefits when the company was doing smart business. They actually made cars people wanted, and bought, in large numbers - Impalas, Camaros, GMC small pickups, Cadillacs when a Cadillac was THE car to have when you were a success. Every boy could recognize every model back then.
Now the cars are all ugly, expensive, and unwanted. Auto executives are second only to airline executives in being incompetent buffoons in business and customer satisfaction.
Michigan’s new state motto:
Duck and Cover.
Oh, and Phizer is laying off another 250+ employees in Kalamazoo by the end of the year.
Yippie. / sarc
“get rid of all of those dead beat union workers, who have refused to work with GM in reducing costs”
While they are at it they might want to get rid of all those deadbeat mid and upper level management people.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m NOT pro union, but after working in the auto industry as an engineer, I can state with some authority that incompetent, egotistical, arrogant, “yes men” managers are at least as much to blame.
The big three have had warnings for YEARS that foreign quality was beating them. They failed to respond and are paying for it.
This is the country that put men on the Moon, but we cannot design a rear view mirror that stays where it is put???!@!!
Why is that?
Answer:
We can save 45 cents per vehicle if we use a molded plastic part instead of the milled aluminum mount.
“Engineering says that’s not adequate, but what do they know? Besides that, I’m the Boss.”
“I’ll be promoted because I saved the company $123,000 by using the plastic part. That’s what I’m evaluated on!”
Multiply that example by thousands of times and you have the pieces of sh*t that Detroit has been selling to Americans for years when they had no other choices.
People have other choices now.
The problem is NOT all deadbeat union workers.
The Union and GM hacked out a new contract and then spread a bunch of lies about much of the details to the employees. The Union scheduled their meetings so it was nearly impossible for the members to attend before or after their shifts.
Anyway, the Temps on-board were told they would all become full time members at $30 per hour but then they laid them all off last December or so and brought them back a few weeks ago at the new contract rate of $14 per hour.
GM is busy now buying out as many old workers as possible and flooding the lines with the cheaper Temps.
I think that soon there will only be a core handfull of workers (line leaders and such) that are full time permanent and the rest will forever be Temps with no benefits and with the ability of GM to let them go at any time.
Now lets see if they can reduce the price of their vehicles to reflect some of this savings after they get their financial ducks in line.
GM sold off GMAC some years ago....
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