How Chrysler Can Actually Help Detroit

zPatriot ^ | 2/28/12 | Marly Jacobs

[greywar]

Did you know that there are no Volkswagen manufacturing plants in the Detroit area? Or Mercedes-Benz? Or Kia? Or Hyundai? Or BMW, for that matter? The Motor City has a well-earned reputation for having the greatest auto workers in the nation, yet honorable Michiganders largely build cars for only three companies.

Apart from having their cars assembled in Michigan, it turns out that those three companies have something else in common: the United Auto Workers union (UAW). It also turns out that every other car manufacturer has something in common, too: not wanting the UAW to do to them what it did to the Big Three.

[greywar]

More here...

http://www.zpatriot.com/zpatriot/articles/60/how-chrysler-can-actually-help-d

[ILS21R]

“We cannot continue to repeat mistakes and continue to offer Detroiters the same broken policies that turned a shining city into a busted mess. If the city ultimately fails, it will be a great symbol of the liberal philosophy of managing decline through dependency. If Detroit succeeds, it will be because its citizens were offered more choices, more freedom, more jobs, and more economic opportunity.”

This would be correct.... 30 years ago.

[greywar]

I am confused. What is incorrect about it today?

[ILS21R]

It’s too late for Detroit.

[Last Dakotan]

Here's a true UAW story;

My company was buying a huge new piece of automated factory equipment and I went to inspect it to see that it met our requirements. The next machine they were assembling behind ours was for the UAW organized Allison transmission group.

The engineers working on the Alison machine were spitting mad. Due to a union grievance, they had to de-rate the production capacity of the machine so it could work no faster than the machine it was replacing. Its a fully automated machine, the job of the operator was just to watch it work....

[count-your-change]

I often think of Detroit as I would a huge ocean liner that has sunk in harbor. The ship is too big and expensive to raise and repair and the water too shallow for the ship to totally sink out of sight and be done with it.

Instead it sits there, not quite without hope for the hopeful and not quite with a future for those who realize piecemeal fixes just won't work.

Any actions that would actually reverse course in Detroit would be considered too Draconian, unconstitutional, racist, harsh, unable to pass legal scrutiny, blah, blah yada, yada.

So Detroit will remain much as it is now, slowly deteriorating physically and culturally.

[blueunicorn6]

I grew up in a very pro-union family. My own experiences with unions has turned me against them. They don’t even follow their own rules. They turn into good-old-boy clubs that are used to hire nephews and cousins and other relatives. They don’t ever have to help you, but buddy, you’d better pay your union dues.

[duckman]

“...yet honorable Michiganders largely build cars for only three companies.”

Isn’t Chrysler owned by Fiat?

[GEOscout]

This article really makes sense, right to work is the future.

[greywar]

Ah I see. I guess I think pretty much any situation can come back eventually.

Call me a cockeyed optimist...

[fuzzylogic]

I totally hear you. I’ve worked for the Big Three, the unions create a climate of “quicksand”...they have no inherent interest in progress, in fact they prefer the opposite.

IMO unions end up behaving as “legal gangs”, same attitude. The problem is though, I’ve seen some execs that would pay people $1/hr if they could, no interest in people’s well being at all.

[MarkL]

No problem with Detroit that the muslims from Dearborn won’t be able to fix.

Just you wait... That former industrial giant will become a 3rd century muslim paradise in just another decade or two.

Mark