General Motors Abandonment Of The US Worker Now Makes Them A UAW Target

This sums up why GM is where it is with labor: “GM has the highest labor cost, at $63 per worker, and the highest gap between with the transplant automakers among the Detroit 3”. The UAW has GM nearly where it was before the bankruptcy. Other companies can provide greater value to customers and earn more profits to reinvest but GM has this millstone around its neck. For GM to survive its employees (don’t use Marxist terms like “worker”) need to decertify the UAW.

Auto production in the US isn’t even in the top 5 globally and that includes the transplants. GM should demand parity with the transplants and decertification in exchange for any assignments to the existing underutilized plants. Otherwise they’ll keep moving jobs out until the UAW is dead... I am no fan of GM Sr Mgt at all but this is about keeping mfg in the US. If you say I’m anti-employee you’re an idiot because GM is reducing employment as a result of the union so YOU are anti-employee if you support the UAW... it’s common sense in a globally competitive environment

Good post. Saving GM means making hard decisions to compete. GM management has not done a great job. But if was just about saving UAW jobs it hamstrings the company in their decision making.

Don't even act like this is the ONLY industry full of grossly over-paid/over-compensated workers doing basic, repetitive work. I can get a job flipping burgers for $15/hr or more today. The average cost of labor has indeed skyrocketed in the past decade. So when employee expenses start to affect the shareholders bottom line year-after-year, a lot of hard decisions must be made.

AND...the problem is not only with the automaker, the dynamic has a strong foundation within the this specific union labor agreements with the UAW. I will never say labor unions are bad, but the UAW has some (obvious) operational issues. They are leading their own honest, hard-working members down a hugely bad path. Most of this mess lies mostly within the old culture of greasin-the-palms in back-office dealings.

Maybe a new major autoworkers union needs to be established.

Unions are nothing more than business killing cancer with forced mafia extortion union dues and they need to go. Time to decertify ALL unions before they destroy all domestic employers with greed and stupidity. We all must compete on a global basis and those that don't or won't will be relegated to the history books just like all the shipyards in the UK that were killed off due to union greed.

Workers must be suppressed for their own good. They will come to enjoy 14 hour days, six days a week at minimum wage. Trust us on this one.

Canada and the US both have tough labor laws that adequately protect workers rights and enhance work place safety so spare me the bullshit. If these vermin are too stupid and greedy to realize this then they too will be obsoleted and replaced by full automation. The Ponzi scheme UAW "cult members" must remember that they are easily replaceable and not "equity partners" like they have been brainwashed to believe by the secret salary $500K/year charlatans union heads that haven't been jailed yet...

@garysandiego Spoken like a true Democrat.

Trump warned Mary Barra. The ho should have listened.

We are not a dictatorship, yet. The US president cannot order a company to do his bidding, whether it is keeping UAW workers or trying to force US companies to abandon China.

Dom't be so easily triggered to do your CTRL + V diatribes. GM is not a friend to the American economy. Bring it to its knees.

Good on the UAW to put some pressure on GM as well. Perhaps with Trump on one end and UAW on the other putting pressure on GM they will think long and hard about how they can keep jobs and plants in the US. Other country manufacturers are able to to do so like BMW/VW etc... surely they can figure out a way to have a nice mix of global and local manufacturing that is amicable to the country and to GM.

The only way they can keep Final Assembly plants in the USA is to have them produce Large Crossovers and Higher end Trucks.

The problem is - the industry is changing so rapidly - with ICE cars sales dropping daily - the impending EV boom - and the age of the crossover. I don't think ANY of us thought this would happen to the extent it has as quickly as it has. WE are going to see a bunch of EV cars - when cars are not selling too.

So GM is forced to close and stop car production. This will eventually work its way around. GM Uses these same platforms or their successors for their Crossovers - and eventually will need these plants for them

Totally agree with TomM.

Automakers had been been showing gradual improvements for fuel-cell & EV tech for 10-15 years. The Recession forced all major automakers to re-organize their R&D plans & focus production on the changing consumer trends. However, a smaller warehouse operations were able to complete & duplicate a fantastic EV roaster which led to heavy investment in Tesla - after the recession.

There's no way GM or any other established automaker could have had an acceptable EV ready to compete when Tesla started pushing Model S copies out to customers. If Tesla had UAW workforce - it would've been bankrupt or sold-off by this time.