>:-( General Motors to lay off nearly a quarter of its workforce!

[UdoKier]

Wall Street will undoubtedly swoon. God forbid they focus on something like um, I dunno.... MAKING GOOD CARS?!!


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/06/07/financial/f064304D20.DTL

GM Plans to Cut 25,000 U.S. Jobs by 2008
By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Auto Writer
Tuesday, June 7, 2005

(06-07) 09:32 PDT Wilmington, Del. (AP) --

General Motors Corp. plans to eliminate 25,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States by 2008 and close plants as part of a strategy to revive North American business at the world's largest automaker, its chairman said on Tuesday.

Speaking to shareholders at GM's 97th annual shareholder meeting in Delaware, Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said the capacity and job cuts should generate annual savings of roughly $2.5 billion. GM now employs 111,000 hourly workers in the United States.


Another great bonus for the GOP: When these workers are displaced, retrained and put into non-union McJobs that pay half as much, that will be 25K FEWER Union members, that much less money in UAW coffers, that much less in donations to democrats.

THIS SHIT HAS BEEN GOING ON NON-STOP FOR 25 YEARS. AND SOME OF YOU STILL WONDER WHY OUR PARTY AND THE MIDDLE CLASS ARE DYING? WHY ARE MILLIONS OF AMERICANS NOT OUT IN THE STREETS WITH TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS YET?

HOW MUCH LONGER ARE WE GOING TO CONTINUE TO LET THEM ROB US OF EVERYTHING???

[SharonAnn]

1. but the executives have guaranteed pensions for life. Bankruptcy

or cutback or insufficient pension funding won't affect them. They get separate contracts and fully funded pensions immune from bankruptcy.

Ain't life special at the top?

[madrchsod]

2. genral motors should lay of a 25% of it management

and all of it`s cost engineering dept.they could also get rid of alot of other mangement but they won`t. the workers at general motors can make a product just as good as any car the japanese or anyone else,remember alot of japanese cars are made in american by american workers. honda and toyota let their engineers build the best cars in the world.at general motors the accounting depts engineer their cars and it shows.

[Ikonoklast]

3. Health care is a huge problem

for GM and the UAW knows it. The costs for them are spiralling out of control and it is going to be increasingly difficult for them to maintain benefits at the current level. Also, don't take for granted the Democratic credentials of the rank and file as many of them were Reagan Democrats and also voted for Bush. I know many members personally that wanted nothing to do with the Democrats because of the perception that the party was beholden to the special interests and took for granted the support of white, working class union members. I still remember when the UFCW was on strike, our picket lines were crossed by autoworkers that told us the price of food was too high beacause we made too much money. I'll never forget that. Hard for me to feel sorry for them when they sold the bullets to the enemy and then were shot with them.

[UdoKier]

4. Regardless of how workers vote, the unions gave big-time to democrats.

The decimation of the US working class is directly related to the destruction of the Democratic party and its increasing reliance on corporate donors (thus the DLC & huge slide to the far right)

[Toots]

5. So you are anti union

You feel those twenty five thousand workers deserve to lose their jobs because Democrats are beholdin to special interest. It is a good thing republicans are not beholdin or someone might get their hands on the US Treasury and people could lose jobs. D'Oh

[Ikonoklast]

10. Please re-read my post

I joined the union when I went to work at age seventeen and was a union member for over twenty-five years. I served as shop steward and still have my withdrawal card in case I go back to the industry. My pension is a union pension, when I qualify for it. I would NEVER cross a picket line of any other union; the auto workers who crossed our lines (and the steelworkers, police and firefighter union members, etc.) obviously did not care about labor solidarity. And yes, they cut their own throats by voting Repub. and against their own self-interest along with a great many working-class people.

[Toots]

12. Sorry I did misread your post

I am also opposed to those Union members that go against the Union such as Teamsters Union. Did you know that in 1999 they hired scab labor to build a new Union Hall in Houston Tx?

[area51]

13. "Health care is a huge problem"

That's why we need single-payer healthcare yesterday. It's good for the country, good for worker productivity.

[Selatius]

6. Stop building SUVs, damn it!

Jesus H. Christ, they're making the same mistakes that were made in 1973.

What the fuck is wrong with this picture: They build SUVs and make it the mainstay of their product line, but gas prices are blowing up, and worker wages have stagnated.

And they wonder why people keep buying Toyotas and Hondas. Those workers wouldn't have been fired if the management didn't have it's head up its own ass and made such costly and stupid mistakes.

[UdoKier]

8. The big SUVs have huge profit margins.

the profit on a big SUV is at least six times more than what it is on a compact car. They relied on them through the 90s boom, without even considering what they should have always known was a strong possibility - higher gas prices. They should have had plans for compact SUV's, hybrids and fuel-efficient but cool cars ready to roll when the prices went up.

The hybrids and the boxy Scions seem to be selling like hotcakes here in SF...

[Ikonoklast]

11. I've never seen

a four-door toaster on wheels until I saw a Scion. Damn thing is just like an ugly puppy, kinda grows on you and then you bring it home.

[cthrumatrix]

7. it's a major problem... and it will have a huge impact on more

than GM employees..I see this buiness going to cheaper labor countries for sale back to the US

[UdoKier]

9. Amazing how labor-related threads raise nary an eyebrow at DU.

(sigh)

[Ikonoklast]

14. That is part of the problem

with the so-called "New Democrats". They gradually took for granted the support of labor and its' money but voted against us when the chips were down. The Democratic party saw huge defections from rank-and-file members because they turned increasingly conservative on issues pertinent to us. Soon it was hard to discern a difference between indifference on the Dem side and hostility from the right.

[BurtWorm]

15. So much for that rally.

When GM talks, no one listens to Greenspan.