A lot of people have seemed to want it.....including most on this board. Well.....it looks like you're going to get it. Enjoy..... http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/23/detroit-chrysler-gm-bankruptcy-business-autos-detroit.html
Folks I know who are in Chrysler blame the Obama administration for the Fiat deal not going through. Our government put our auto company Chrysler under a 30 gun to resolve a number of issues including union contracts and the bond holders. Fiat, sensing that Chrysler had little leverage left, took a hard line in negotiations. We're seeing the results. The American presidency is sticking it to American auto companies. You wanted this guy.....enjoy.
...and then there is the GM saga..... ...but hey....let's pretend the last 8 years didn't exist..... :roll:
Yeah, right, it was only the contracts entered into with the UAW, forced upon them by the Bush administration, in the past 8 yrs. that caused all the problems of the auto industry.
I can remember my father, who worked at GM's Delco brake plant in Dayton, Ohio in the 70's( now closed ) telling me back then how he couldnot believe how much waste and over spending there was on labor while he was there. That's 40 years ago. When your benefits to retirees is larger than your current payroll and demand for your prodiuct is down, well..... Add in a president who came in to office by Trojan Horse and now reveals himself as an anti-business socialist and, well....
Nothing against your father by any means intended but he was part of that generation of workers who believed more in union entitlement than they did the company. I'm certain your father was absolutely not one these guys but he had many co-workers who felt that way and the irony of it is that anything done to protect retiree benefits is basically for that generation of workers who carried that approach with them. I think today's auto workers really do get it for the most part and realize the dire straits they are in but if times were good I can agree there would be a few more of them willing to slide back to the old mentality but that stance wouldn't be as popular as it was 40 years ago. I think it is off base to classify today's auto labor issues as being a product of the attitude of today's auto workers. I have witnessed this changeover myself down at Cobo Hall in Detroit. When I first started going down to the Cobo docks in the 80s the old guard Teamsters there clearly came from a generation of labor that fostered corruption, entitlement and violence and I have to tell you I never felt completely safe and comfortable down there and getting anything special done when loading the trucks was particularly dicey. The old guy's kids have basically taken over for the old man the last 15 years or so and it is a hard working, friendlier and cooperative bunch generally speaking who realize that if they become the problem the auto show might just go somewhere else. I am assuming the same kind of generational change has taken place in the plants for the same reasons.