GM Says No To UAW's Job Idea

[William Maley]

GM Says No To UAW's Job Idea

William Maley - Editor/Reporter - Cheersandgears.com

July 18, 2011

GM and the UAW are already butting heads before next week’s contract talk. One of the goals the UAW is looking for in this round of contract talks is to add jobs.

"This country has to come back with jobs. We've got a tough set of negotiations coming up,” said Joe Ashton, the UAW vice president in charge of GM relations.

GM will be the big target for adding jobs. The UAW hopes to convince GM to increase vehicle production in the United States by using plants that are underutilized. The three plants the UAW is looking at are the Spring Hill, Tennessee; Shreveport, Louisiana and Janesville, Wisconsin plants.

However, GM isn’t keen to jump on this idea.

"We need to see some pretty healthy market recovery before we start turning factories back on," said Cathy Clegg, GM vice president of labor relations.

Clegg went onto say GM wanted employees to "share in our success." But she also said,

"Reconstructing what we were is not in the cards."

The two did say they were optimistic about the talks.

Source: Reuters

[Intrepidation]

While we do need more jobs, adding more jobs to a company that doesn't need them only stresses the company financially, and then we're heading back down bankruptcy lane again.

[balthazar]

I've waited & waited to read a statement from the UAW that shows they're connected to reality, but so far these many years, I must've missed it.

[Croc]

Well, GM will be investing a lot into Flint. That'll help boost jobs. GM sales have been up, leading to more production shifts, which leads to more jobs. Reading between the lines...I think there will be more jobs coming, but not in the form of GM suddenly turning all of its factories back on and revving them up to full production capacity.

[Potluck]

More jobs at fewer plants with flexible production. GM doesn't need Springhill right now. All of the coming models already have room at the existing plants.

[Drew Dowdell]

Jobs for jobs sake is a bad idea. They should bring Zeta over here and build it at SpringHill... THEN there will be a reason to reactivate that plant.

[loki]

gm's role isn't to hire people. it's to make good cars that sell for a total profit. if it takes one person that's fine, if it takes 10,000 that's fine too.

[hyperv6]

It is time for the UAW to learn a healthy GM would make and sell better products make more profit and hire more people to meet greater demand.

They need to learn if they want more money they need to go back to school and get a different job. For Gods sake they are building cars not doing brain surgery.

[Chicagoland]

So many are in denial that GM went BK and had to borrow from the US Govt. They still think GM is a "Money Tree" and they can just hand out jobs for workers to show up and read newspapers all day.

[hyperv6]

Just proof the UAW memebers are on drugs. We even have several video's.

I get tired of the Unions leaders and Politcians playing the class warfare card. They preach to these people how evil the rich companies and CEO's are as they ply their own pockets with money, power and votes. Funny how many of the riches political people in this country are supporting and supported by Unions but they are not evil.

Edited July 20, 2011 by hyperv6

[riviera74]

Maybe the UAW should focus on converting foreign-owned plants to UAW plants instead and grow their membership that way. Then again, that would actually make sense. UAW has seldom made any sense since at least 1980. GM needs fewer plans working at capacity, not more plants running at 50% or lower capacity. More sales and more profits first last and always.

[hyperv6]

Maybe the UAW should focus on converting foreign-owned plants to UAW plants instead and grow their membership that way. Then again, that would actually make sense. UAW has seldom made any sense since at least 1980. GM needs fewer plans working at capacity, not more plants running at 50% or lower capacity. More sales and more profits first last and always.

They try and continue to try to organize these foreign owned plants but to no avail. Many of these plants are in the south or in areas that are not union friendly and most do not want to organize. They have targeted the new VW plant and and only time will tell if they can get in there.

Many of the big three plants are in areas pro union and are much easier for them to heard the brainwashed workers to their needs.

[dwightlooi]

Let's get one thing straight... Companies should not be in the business of "creating jobs". Companies should be in the business of turning out products or services which the market demands and make a profit. Job creation is incidental to manpower requirements necessary to fulfill the profit motive. Herein lies the folly of Unions. Unions -- by definition -- are anti-competitive organizations whose purpose is to extort compensation and benefits above and beyond that which a competitive labor market will bear via the threat of work disruption, political lobbying or out right racketeering. Basically, Unions cause a scenario where companies -- under the threat of labor actions -- are forced into a substantially higher wage structure than needed find qualified and willing applicants to fill their human resource needs.

This has three cascading effects. The first being that the companies -- sometimes an entire industry -- under the strangle hold of powerful unions becomes uncompetitive and are often forced into decline. These declining companies or industries, then either flee the state or country for alternative locales where there is a free market for labor, or (if they are unable to do so) simply fail and collapse. In the meanwhile, new companies or budding industries see what's happening and set up shop outside the beleaguered regions with strong union influence. In the end, entire industries and nations are decimated, able and willing individuals are unable to find work due to the outflow of capital, and an entire region repels capital and economic growth. The goal of trying to secure better rewards for their members, while noble from an idealistic sense, ultimately resulted in killing of the goose that lays the eggs. In fact, it often kills enough geese that the species become endangered or extinct.