Thousands of Chrysler Workers Walk Out

Yahoo / AP ^ | 10/10/2007 | EagleUSA

[Centurion2000]

I’m thinking Far North Texas could use a good auto plant. Maybe Wichita Falls would like to have a nice big auto plant off Hwy 287 as well.

[BurbankKarl]

I bet the Chrysler Dealer Show in Las Vegas is a real hoot today!

[janetjanet998]

very long story but here's the short version..

CAT replaced the striking workers with management and temp workers off the street and made record profits...after almost 2 years the Union called off the strike and signed the exact same contract they walked off their jobs for. (The contract was almost exactly the Contracy GM/UAW signed last month)

In the past 10 years CAT has outsourced alot of production at the UAW plants to local mom and pop shops and has built plants in the South moving 1000's of jobs out of Peoria in the process(Thanks UAW)

[janetjanet998]

very long story but here's the short version..

CAT replaced the striking workers with management and temp workers off the street and made record profits...after almost 2 years the Union called off the strike and signed the exact same contract they walked off their jobs for. (The contract was almost exactly the Contracy GM/UAW signed last month)

In the past 10 years CAT has outsourced alot of production at the UAW plants to local mom and pop shops and has built plants in the South moving 1000's of jobs out of Peoria in the process(Thanks UAW)

[Screaming_Gerbil]

Anyone taking bets on how long Cerberus allows the circus to go on before they pull the plug and sell off Chrysler’s assets?? Maybe Chrysler could be re-invented as a smaller leaner company with new factories in the right-to-work states without the killer albatross of the UAW?...

My understanding is that Cerberus is run by very intelligent people who do not put up with poor performance.

So this stike will probably last a short time (time enough to get the unsold inventory down) and will allow the union to save face by saying "We tried". But we will have to go back to work before too long or we will simply not have jobs to go back to.

The people who run Cerberus obviously have a plan - and a back-up plan.

Gotta get off the PC now and "work" around the house and on the vehicles. I believe it is best even if not "working" to still maintain a "work" schedule...

[DoughtyOne]

To: DoughtyOne

The truth is, a simply majority can force one.

The workers don't choose to strike or not - Union leaders do.

27 posted on 10/10/2007 9:00:46 AM PDT by green iguana

It was my understanding that union leadership could call a vote, but a rank and file vote had to be taken to approve of a strike. Then the management took over.

Is that not correct?

[arderkrag]

Someone reading this: Please found a non-union car company and run the unionized ones out of business.

[arderkrag]

This IMO, should be illegal

Ok...why? It's the free market in action. People can freely assemble via a union and charge each company different amounts as they wish. It's up to the company whether or not to pay. I hate unions and unionized labor, but they should be free to operate as long as no rights are being violated.

[kaktuskid]

More than likely Chrysler will have its vehicles “contract built” by companies like Magna, who already builds Chryslers in Europe for that market

[CottonBall]

The UAW had 1.5 million members in 1979, now they have less than 600,000. The UAW’s greed and foolishness will lead to their own extinction.

I guess that explains why the unions bosses want illegals to join.

[Dead Dog]

Price discrimination. It is especially bad since they act as a monopoly on the labor supply. Break that part of it up, and they can go for whatever they want.

[CottonBall]

I was a steelworker back in the day when America still had an industrial base, and I just remind him that those industries existed long before the union crime families moved in.

Didn't we have even more industries BEFORE the unions held them hostage. Especially the steel industry.

[Dead Dog]

I wonder if it would be easier to found a competing Union, or a inside UAW movement to de-cert.

[CottonBall]

What you will get laid in front of you is the closing notice when they shut your plant down and move.

The last grocery workers' strike we had here resulted in one chain of stores closing in our city. The workers in those stores had to either hope they could get in with the other remaining union chain or work in the numberous nonunions stores still in business. Just desserts, I'd say.

[Dinsdale]

IIRC at the start of the latest GM strike GM had about 2 months worth of inventory on hand.

Does anybody know how much inventory Chrysler has?

What kind of morons run the UAW?

[arderkrag]

I detest anti-trust laws to an extreme. Government should not participate in commerce. Period. That means no protectionism, no governing of products sold, nada.

[omega4179]

This is great, less crappy Dodge cars will be made.

[Spktyr]

Cerberus is rethinking the Chery plan, especially after the Brilliance disaster.

You DO know it was Mercedes’ idea to import Chery-produced cars and not Cerberus’, right?

[Spktyr]

Chrysler has left over ***2005*** models sitting unsold on storage lots. The UAW doesn’t have a clue.

[Spktyr]

At least 3-6 months of most models, according to reports. Less of their more popular ones, of course - but there are still unsold 2005’s sitting in storage lots.

USAToday reported in November of *last year* that Chrysler had in excess of 50,000 cars sitting on storage lots, most of which were 2006 models in the 2007 model year. Reports have the situation only getting worse. Chrysler has the most unsold inventory of any US seller.