(Picture is link to story.)
Posted on 11/22/2008 8:23:46 AM PST by Kaslin
Edited on 11/22/2008 12:08:08 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker.
According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012."
(Excerpt) Read more at laht.com ...
We happen to drive a Chrysler Town and Country because we feel a loyalty to Chrysler for the good vehicles we've had in the past but if the pressure is on to be more competitive, then they'll have to do what they have to do.
Protectionism does not work in the long run.
It was 100% correct for my car brand.
Maybe there is a problem with an update in the data: Either your car is no longer assembled in Tennessee or the data was not updated from 1997 on your model.
That's got to be one of the funniest lines ever written!
(and true too)
No bailouts, no matter what or who.
Northwest Indiana Times
Ford workers get holiday layoff
As far as I know these employees are being paid 85% to sit idle by the UAW Jobs Bank, but maybe I am wrong.
Post and read your comments on layoffs at FORD here:
http://nwi.com/articles/2008/11/22/news/top_news/doc81a2d673f9b71f0e86257509000560f5.txt
Northwest Indiana Times
Ford workers get holiday layoff
BY ANDREA HOLECEK
holecek@nwitimes.com
219.933.3316 | Saturday, November 22, 2008
CHICAGO | As its chairman begs for a congressional bailout and its sales continue to drop, Ford Motor Co. is cutting production at its two local plants in December.
“We have been aggressive in ensuring we build to real customer demand,” Ford spokeswoman Angie Kozleski said Friday. “That may mean we adjust operating schedules accordingly.”
Ford will idle production at its Chicago Heights stamping plant for almost four weeks and its Chicago assembly plant for three weeks next month to align production capacity with demand, officials there said.
“People are being laid off who haven’t been laid off in decades,” said Bill Jackson, president of United Auto Workers Local 588 at the stamping plant.
At least 50 percent of the stamping plant’s production is for the Chicago assembly plant, which recently cut one of its two production shifts and lowered its line speed to reduce output.
“The other places we ship are down, too,” said Jackson, adding his plant already has slowed production and its staffing is below the 650 normal employee mark. “We’ll be partially down the first week. The only people in the plant will be on project work. We’ll be down 75 percent. Almost all production is stopping.”
The stamping plant will have about 98 percent of its workers on layoff for the following three weeks, Jackson said.
“It’s a bottom up layoff, meaning those with the lowest seniority go first,” said Jackson, of Dyer.
The Chicago Assembly Plant will cease production for the weeks of Dec. 15, 22 and 29, when the entire company will close for a holiday break returning to work Jan. 5, Kozleski said.
The assembly plant at 130th Street and Torrence Avenue produces the Ford Taurus and Taurus X, the Mercury Sable and the Lincoln MKS. It is staffed by 1,450 hourly members of UAW Local 551 and 110 salaried employees.
The plant eliminated one of its two shifts Nov. 3, reducing its salaried and hourly employee roles by 792. The cuts included more than 600 temporary workers, an unreported number of regular hourly workers and about two dozen salaried employees. In October, Ford’s vehicle sales dropped 29.2 percent compared to the same month in 2007. The automaker’s sales fell 18.7 percent for the first 10 months of the year compared to the same year ago period.
October sales of the Taurus dropped 53 percent to 3,299 compared to the 5,361 during same month in 2007, while Taurus X sales crashed by 68.4 percent to 1,329 during October from 4,204 in October 2007. Sales of the Mercury Sable fell 64.5 percent to 645 in October 2008 compared to 1,818 for the same month in 2007.
“or the data was not updated from 1997 on your model”
That is probably it.
(Picture is link to story.)
Redesigned for the 2007 model year, the Chevrolet Silverado light-duty pickup is ranked highest in the large pickup segment in the 2008 IQS.
(Picture is link to story)
Initial quality ia not the main problem UAW-chained automakers have. It’s after the thing has a few miles on it and things like WHEELS start falling off.
The Chevys, Fords, and Mercurys I have owned have all gone well over 100,000 miles without a problem. The Ford Crown Victory I owned went 240,000 miles before the kid I sold it to burned up the transmission.
We agree that they should move offshore and that they should not receive a dime of taxpayer money to do so. They don’t need it for that purpose.
You need to talk to merp on this forum. He’s had the opposite experience with GM and Ford build quality. GM’s UAW drones left oil rings out of his C5 Corvette’s engine and also didn’t install the steering column properly; he had a Mustang Cobra that was assembled crooked, and his current Cobra has a factory original shop rag installed between the gas tank and gas tank skid plate because otherwise they would come into contact and rattle/chafe each other. And don’t get me started on how the UAW drones screwed up the front mount bolts for the rear suspension - the idiots installed the wrong bolts!
Ain’t “free trade” grand? Globalization only works with the US taxpayer funds it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.