Foreign-based carmakers fear backlash collapse of Detroit's auto industry would have on supply chain

[Bozita]

Somebody please tell me the GOP senators aren't on a union destroying mission.


http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081213/AUTO01/812130355

Saturday, December 13, 2008
Big 3 rescue wins rivals' support
Foreign-based carmakers fear backlash collapse of Detroit's auto industry would have on supply chain.

Christine Tierney / The Detroit News

WASHINGTON -- They may be unrelenting rivals of Detroit's Big Three, but foreign-based automakers don't relish the prospect that one or more of Detroit's automakers might go under.

On the contrary, the risk that one of the U.S. car companies could collapse deeply worries Asian and German manufacturers with U.S. factories.

As the industry's outlook has deteriorated in recent months, executives at foreign car companies have said they want to see Detroit's cash-strapped automakers get through the crisis, noting that they all share the same network of suppliers.

"We're joined at the hip with our Detroit brethren in manufacturing," said Irv Miller, group vice president and chief spokesman at Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. sales subsidiary. Whatever the U.S. government proposes to keep the U.S. automakers afloat, "we support it," Miller said.

On Friday the Bush administration signaled that it would extend a financial lifeline to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC after a bailout bill died Thursday night in the Senate, where it ran into fierce opposition from Republicans. Some of the bill's most vocal critics, such as Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, represent southern states that have successfully courted investment from foreign automakers.

In the past few weeks, as senators from states with foreign transplants have grown more strident in their criticism of Detroit's top managers and the United Auto Workers union, executives from Japanese and German companies have tried to distance themselves from those sentiments.

Honda executives made it clear last month that they didn't share the views expressed by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., who said during the opening of Honda Motor Co.'s new assembly plant in Greensburg, Ind., that he would rather see the U.S. automakers file for bankruptcy than receive taxpayer money.

Jeffrey Smith, assistant vice president for corporate affairs at American Honda, told reporters, "Honda supports measures that would maintain the short- and long-term viability and stability of the auto industry."

Like his colleagues at Toyota, Smith noted that all automakers that have U.S. production facilities are "deeply and closely integrated at the supply base."

more...

[hlthe2b]

1. So, how about Toyota, Honda and other foreign US production

corporations just stepping up to the plate and UNIONIZING! Take that argument off the table! (yeah, right, I know)

[FarCenter]

3. The bailout legislation could have required the transplants to raise salaries to parity

Lowering the UAW workers salaries was the only thing proposed.

The legislations should have asked for a committment from Toyota, Nissan, Honda, BMW, Daimeler, etc. to raise their salaries instead.

[DainBramaged]

4. Gettlefinger tried to get "all parties involved" to the table

but the Rethugs didn't want that kind of parity, oh no, keep those wage slaves in their states down. And boy, I will bet a weeks meager pay Mike Pence gets soundly defeated when his term is up.

[williesgirl]

2. They need to call their GOP lapdogs and tell them this. rec'd

[madrchsod]

5. the line my daughter works on supplies gm and ford,

the entire product line of toyota,volkswagen,porsche, and bmw.....there are no orders for gm and ford at this time. toyota and the others are cutting back.

she maybe laid off in january because the entire industry is on life support