Interestingly, here’s what’s happening with the auto industry in Australia. Is it just me or is it starting to look like the “auto industry” all over the world is too 20th century?
Excerpt (link follows):
Carr refuses to reveal how many car industry jobs to go
Senator the Hon Eric Abetz
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
$34 million in car package for worker redundancies
Today in Senate Question Time Industry Minister Kim Carr refused to reveal how many car industry jobs the Government expects to be lost through their car package.
And just one day after the package was released, he also attempted to lower expectations about its impact by stating “I do not make promises that this government cannot keep”.
It beggars belief that despite setting aside $116 million for structural adjustment assistance, including $34 million specifically for “labour market assistance” for retrenched car industry workers over the next two years, that the Minister has no idea of how many jobs will be lost.
Labor came to office on the promise of “saving” Australia’s car industry, yet already more than 3,000 jobs have been lost in the sector in less than one year of Rudd Labor Government.
http://www.liberal.org.au/news.php?Id=2036
Many analysts say the U.S. auto industry already is dead. So why would Pelosi & Gang want to bailout an industry that is deader-than-a-doornail and which cannot be revived?
Maybe the last line of this piece explains it.
Excerpt (link follows):
As Car Industry Fails, Detroit Class Warfare Loses It Power
[snip]
The earliest permanent disruption of the balance between labor and the auto companies began after the 1970s as VW and some of the Japanese companies used oil prices to get a foothold in the US market. Despite the tremendous financial success of the auto firms during most of the 1990s and 2000 to 2004, Japanese brands picked up a larger piece of the vehicles sold in the American market. GM’s (GM) profits peaked in 1999 and 2000 at over nearly $17 billion each year.
One of the effects of rising sales for firms like Toyota (TM) is the strikes against US companies tended to do greater and greater damage as consumers could buy good cars from a pool beyond those made by The Big Three. Labor unrest actually had the potential of pushing customer out of the circle of “buying American” if the strikes were long enough to significantly vehicle cut supply.
The American car companies have been overrun by two savage events, both of which largely happened after their latest contracts with the UAW in 2007. The first was the sharp rise in gasoline costs which, coupled with a collapse in the housing market, undercut car sales for The Big Three to a large extent because of their dependence on pick-ups and SUVs . The problem of fuel-efficiency threw huge numbers of sales to Japanese manufacturers who tended to build smaller cars. Just as gas prices began to come down, the credit crisis made getting auto loans much more difficult
The last round of negotiations between the car companies and UAW were tense because auto executives wanted payroll cuts to offset rising employee benefit costs, especially those for retired workers. The car companies were prepared to put tens of billions of dollars into accounts run by the unions to pay future labor benefits. The union agreed to sacrifice jobs. It was an admission on the part of the UAW that its leverage was limited by the damage the US auto industry had sustained from 2005 on.
The UAW made a bad deal. But, it would be hard to imagine how iy could have made a better one. Fuel costs and a recession turned both labor and management into losers. The fury between the two sides, which even showed itself in last year’s negotiations as the UAW threatened several strikes, has lost all of its power. The union will be lucky to get what the car companies owe it for its new benefits fund.
http://www.247wallst.com/2008/10/as-car-industry.html