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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Alighieri who wrote (438507)12/5/2008 1:38:38 PM
From: i-node  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 1574439
 
No...if the unions take paycuts and make concessions, why insist on disbanding them. Never mind...you don't need to answer that...you hate the unions.

I do believe that unions have outlived their usefulness and have now become a counterproductive force in this country making us unable to compete in a global economy. It isn't about "hate", it is about economics.

If they don't want to disband them, fine -- but they need to be substantially neutered.

This is the point your simple mind can't get past. Bust the unions and continue with the business model of the last ten years and they'll go out anyway.

Your personal attack notwithstanding, the gist of your remark requires a great leap to get from here to there. That GM has lost market share vs. Toyota is evident; however, one cannot conclude from that that GM will go broke eventually because of it.

A very strong argument can be made that unions are a significant part of the problem causing the loss in market share. After all, because of the unions, the value proposition when buying a GM car is not as attractive as when one buys a Nissan. As a marketing guru should be able to see this -- if I can buy a Nissan for a little more than a GM car yet have a car that is going to last and not rattle, wouldn't I do that? Get rid of the unions and you'll improve the quality of the product.

Now, the Big 3 need to make some adjustments to their product lines, no doubt -- and I'm sure they will. But none of this makes a nickel's worth of difference if we still have the UAW dragging them down. They have to deal with the biggest problems first, and the biggest problem is the UAW. After that's done, they at least have a fighting chance.



To: Alighieri who wrote (438507)12/5/2008 3:03:04 PM
From: Joe NYC  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1574439
 
Al,

This is the point your simple mind can't get past. Bust the unions and continue with the business model of the last ten years and they'll go out anyway.

Slash cost by $70,000 per year per employee (from ~$140k to ~$70k) and company saves $18B per year. Surely they will have much better fighting chance with these savings...

What Congress could also do is help the Big 3 with R&D cost of plug in hybrids. Take that out of the Defense Budget.

Joe