Funny this article acts like the unions will save them. The unions are at least half of what got GM into trouble in the first place!
A terrific documentary on this topic is Live Another Day, about what really happened during the bailout.
A terrific documentary on this topic is Live Another Day, about what really happened during the bailout.
The cost of firing those workers? They've permanently lost those workers, their families, and their friends as customers. Forever. So that some fat #$@#$ shareholders can have a few more bucks in their bank accounts.
The unions are the only thing protecting those workers and the thousands of jobs in the American supply chain that the executives are doing their best to destroy.
From Motley Fool:
GM targets a cash reserve of $18 billion, and returns any free cash above that number to shareholders via dividends and an ongoing stock-repurchase program. Since 2012, it has returned about $25 billion.
Why you wouldn't take that 25 billion and invest it in AI and electric cars is baffling to me.
When a large organization fails, it's almost always the fault of the leadership.
It strikes me as a real chickensh*t move how our captains of industry rush to claim credit and bonuses when things go right, but blame the workers when the executives can't live up to the guidance they gave to Wall Street.
Toyota isn't unionized, doesn't have any trouble attracting workers, and has a great reputation for quality. There was a time when unions were needed to improve working conditions, but that time has passed.
IMHO, it was a mistake to bail them out. I see why we did it, but it didn't fix the root problems.
It can’t be said they didn’t have that $10 billion. They had it.
More important, the executives knew about the pension liabilities when they accepted the job. It's been part of their planning and their guidance all along. Blaming the workers when those plans failed is cowardly.
Edit:
German automakers are also highly unionized. It doesn't seem to prevent them from making quality cars either. It really seems to me that executives blaming the workers is a US and UK thing. In many business cultures, it just makes the executive seem incompetent.