Free Republic

America should learn from Britain's disastrous takeover of its biggest auto company. Few of the policymakers currently nationalizing the American auto industry seem to remember the British experience, and fewer still seem to have learned anything from it. British Leyland, Britain's largest automaker, faced bankruptcy in 1975. Fearing that its collapse would leave a million workers unemployed, the Labour government nationalized it. The company remained a ward of the state for 13 years. During that time, the British taxpayers invested 11 billion pounds — the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $22 billion today — in a company whose only sign of life...

Ford Learns The Price Of Solvency Logan Robinson, 11.07.09, 12:00 PM EST But what has the UAW learned? In plant-by-plant voting over the last few weeks a large majority of the 41,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) workers employed by the Ford Motor Company voted to reject modifications to their collective bargaining agreement negotiated by their own national union. The modifications were designed to bring the Ford-UAW agreement into parity with concessions the UAW gave to GM and Chrysler as part of their government-brokered bankruptcies. They included a wage freeze for entry-level workers until the 2015 contract, a commitment to binding...

Who knew? Ally Bank is running all those TV ads belittling the “fine print” used by other banks. But as the Wall Street Journal detailed on Tuesday, the ads do not disclose that Ally is a unit of troubled GMAC  Financial Services, the former financing arm of GM, now seeking its third multi-billion taxpayer  bailout.Ally had been offering some of the highest CD interest rates in the nation until federal bank regulators pressured Ally to reduce them. Lower rates are one thing but there is another compelling consideration when shopping CD rates. When you deposit your money with Ally, you...

Do I detect a bit of payback in this story? The UAW rank-and-file rejected a renegotiated contract from Ford intended to bring themselves into parity with GM and Chrysler, as has long been the practice for the Detroit automakers. In doing so, the workers also rejected the counsel of their own union, which had endorsed the new contract. Ford will have to operate at a disadvantage for the next two years in terms of compensation as a result:

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co.'s rank-and-file union members rejected a concessions agreement, leaving the auto maker at risk to higher costs compared with competitors Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. Although some locals are still voting through Sunday, the United Auto Workers national leadership has accepted the defeat, said three union sources who asked not to be identified since they don't officially speak for the UAW. The leadership is now reviewing other options, these people said. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told Dow Jones Newswires on Friday he will not continue bargaining or conduct a re-vote. Ford will now have...

General Motors (GM) closed its Wilmington, Delaware plant in July, leaving 550 active employees out of work, and another 500 laid-off hourly workers without the hope of being called back to work. Vehicle manufacturing used to be Delaware’s second largest private employer. Perhaps it will be again. Fisker Automotive announced on October 27 it signed a letter of intent to buy the plant for $18 million after a routine four-month evaluation period. Built by GM in 1947, the Wilmington plant produced 8.5 million cars, and has a production capacity of 300,000 cars a year. The Wilmington plant will support the...

Doubts are growing about whether the Ford pact with the United Auto Workers will be approved after the rank and file at two more plants overwhelmingly rejected it. Workers at a parts-making plant in Saline, Mich., voted 75 percent against the deal. Research and engineering employees in Dearborn, Mich., were even more negative, with roughly 90 percent voting against the deal. Ford’s biggest assembly plant, at Claycomo, has already voted 92 percent against the concessions, which Ford says it needs to stay competitive. Chrysler and General Motors got the conessions from the UAW, but they were going through bankruptcy, which...

Unions Bend the Curve! I knew they'd find a way to punish Ford: The new UAW contract with Ford apparently does not give America's surviving non-bankrupt automaker parity with GM and Chrysler, reports Bloomberg: "The plan doesn’t include cuts to retiree benefits, such as vision coverage, that were granted to GM and Chrysler." Rather, the pain seems even more concentrated on future hires (if there are any) than with the GM/Chrysler deals. ... TTAC wonders whether the UAW had an extra incentive to resist giving concessions that might make Ford more successful now that the union owns a large chunk of its main domestic competitors.  ... P.S.: The argument that "the...

Remember the Chrysler "hedge fund investors" that President Obama berated on national TV? Among these people labeled as "no-goodniks" by the President were organizations such as the the Indiana State Teachers’ Retirement Fund, and the Police retirement fund. The President of the United States was trying to intimidate retired teaches from exercising their rights as primary investors. That's the politics of change, screw a bunch of retired teachers to reward the UAW for helping you get elected. Apparently it was not only retired cops, teachers and other primary investors screwed by the GM/Chrysler Bailout deals (along with the American taxpayer),...

[Full title was edited to comply with space requirements, here's unedited version:] "Well-Kept Media Secret: UAW Conceded No Base Pay, Health, or Pension Benefits in GM, Chrysler Bankruptcy Run-ups" A New York Times article by Nick Bunkley on Friday targeted for print on Saturday about the status of contract talks between Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers piqued my interest in a previously neglected but important matter. Ford and the UAW are apparently close to an agreement. In describing what Ford workers are being asked to give up, Bunkley wrote the following (bolds are mine throughout this post):...

HIDALGO — Autoworkers from Michigan shouted for an end to free trade Monday afternoon on the Mexican-American border, where relaxed trade restrictions have fostered rampant economic growth. As the 18 or so members of the Local 174 of the United Auto Workers union from Romulus, Mich. waved signs at drivers approaching the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge, maquiladora workers in Mexico gathered on a street corner to protest what they say is an unfair dismissal of workers. At one point during the concurrent protests, two American autoworkers crossed the bridge to meet and support the maquiladora workers, in a gesture of conciliation...

The crew cut, the workingman's clothes, the blunt manner - no one embodied the popular image of a union leader better than Rudy Kuzel. But that was the surface. Underneath was a smart, well-respected and complicated man tough enough to battle auto company executives and pragmatic enough to cooperate with them if it helped workers. Kuzel, who led United Auto Workers Local 72 in Kenosha for 12 tumultuous years in the 1980s and '90s, died Thursday. He was 73. "He was always two steps ahead of everybody else in the room," said John Drew, who was vice president of Local...

<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Peterbilt Corp. permanently closed its truck plant in Nashville.</p>

UAW Moves St. Louis Workers To Ind. KOKOMO, Ind. -- Nearly 200 Chrysler workers in Kokomo will soon be out of work again as part of a union agreement that will allow out-of-state workers to take their jobs. The move comes after a plant in St. Louis shut down. According to a United Auto Workers contract, 178 of the workers with the most seniority will be offered positions in Kokomo, 6News' Jennifer Carmack reported. President of Local 685 Richie Boruff said that local members fought hard to prevent the move, but eventually lost the fight. One worker told Carmack by...

ACORN, a social justice organization with roots in [New Orleans], battles a string of scandals. The announcement stuck to a wall outside the entrance to ACORN's local office in the 2600 block of Canal Street quietly signals the trouble afoot. In English and Spanish, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now tells walk-up clients that ACORN's housing office has shut itself down for two weeks to immerse itself "in an intensive training program." The sign is a symptom of a tumultuous week in the history of a controversial poor people's social justice movement -- one founded by a New...

DETROIT - Toyota's decision to close its 25-year-old California factory where UAW workers build Corolla cars and Tacoma pickups has delivered a seismic, Detroit-like jolt to the once-invincible Silicon Valley economy. The Japanese automaker's first plant closing in North America will add to California's swelling unemployment rolls, and perhaps, help the Golden State better empathize with the industry that it has persistently challenged with regulatory requirements. The closure also will eliminate Toyota's only UAW-represented workforce. ;California has now lost 580,000 manufacturing jobs - a quarter of its total - since 2001. NUMMI's closure next March could erase about 40,000 more....

Buy a new General Motors car. Don't like it? Return it and get your money back. General Motors, in a bid to appeal to consumers upset about decades of poor quality and the carmaker's government bailout, is launching an unusual program: money-back guarantees. Between Sept. 14 and Nov. 30, buyers will be able to return Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet or GMC products within 60 days if they don't like them, the automaker announced Thursday. Such programs are commonplace in other businesses, but not for cars. For one thing, cars cost, on average, about $25,000 and they lose a lot of value...

The bail out of General Motors and Chrysler is turning out to be a bigger problem for the country than originally thought. In creating the bankruptcy the POTUS turned things on their heels by forcing the primary investors to take a secondary stance in recovering their objection to the UAW. Basically he bailed out the UAW more than the Detroit auto industry. Earlier this week we found out that taxpayers face losses on a significant portion of the $81 billion in government aid the UAW though GM and Chrylser. The Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) did not provide an estimate of...

The Constitution, a document President Obama has apparently not familiarized himself with, as it is the guiding light for America, is being turned down, as if on a dimmer switch, by B. Hussein Obama. Yes, the President of the United States of America has worked around the Constitution, defied the Constitution and flat out chosen to challenge Congress and the American people by being a criminal.

Reporting from Los Angeles and Fremont, Calif. - Toyota Motor Corp.'s decision to abandon its assembly line in Fremont marks the end of large-scale auto manufacturing in California, which over the years boasted a dozen or more plants building vehicles ranging from Studebakers to Camaro muscle cars. The Japanese automaker said Thursday that it would end production at the plant March 31, throwing 4,700 people out of work, and return some production to Japan. It's another hard blow for California, a state already grappling with an 11.9% unemployment rate -- its highest since World War II and the fourth-worst in...

(AP) — LANSING, Mich. - Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has given state employee unions a required 30-day notice of layoffs in case a budget deal is not reached by Oct. 1. The layoff notices were sent to the unions Friday. Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd says the governor does not expect a government shutdown and plans to have a budget in place on time. The 30-day notice is required under collective bargaining contracts because money has not been appropriated for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The Democratic governor and lawmakers so far have been unable to agree on how...

FREMONT, Calif. — Toyota Motor Corp. officially confirmed Thursday that it will relocate production of the Tacoma pickup from a (unionized) plant in Northern California to its state-of-the-art (non-unionized) manufacturing facility in San Antonio by next summer. The announcement came hours after the Japanese automaker ended its relationship with a joint venture plant in the San Francisco Bay area as part of an effort to reduce excess production capacity at plants around the globe and return to profitability. As part of the plan to shift Tacoma production to San Antonio, Toyota will stop making vehicles at the New United Motor...

Toyota said today it plans to shut down the NUMMI plant because of high labor costs, associated with California’s high cost of living, and not because the UAW represents workers at the plant. “The UAW presence does not have a direct impact on the decision,” Executive Vice President Atsushi Niimi said in conference call today. “California is a high-cost location,” Niimi said.

In a statement released today by the UAW, union President Ron Gettelfinger said, “It’s unfortunate the company chose to close a U.S. facility after benefiting so greatly from the federal cash-for-clunkers program, which is funded by U.S. taxpayers.”

Ken Jacob locked eyes with "Skip" Ohlsen and asked him a simple question. "What's your name?" "Skip," said Ohlsen. Jacob was in no mood to play games. It was early 2005. Just months removed from a 20-year career as an influential Missouri lawmaker, the Democrat from Columbia was now in his new job working for a union in the capital city. He had been to a few meetings with Ohlsen and, like other Democratic operatives, had begun to question the man's credentials. Something just didn't feel right. The former minority leader of the Senate, known for his combative style and...

NEW YORK — Chrysler Group LLC is planning to build the Fiat 500 small car at a plant in Mexico, according to a report published Monday. The automaker could also build an engine for the 500 at a plant in Trenton, Michigan, and is weighing building another compact car similar to the 500 in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Chrysler spokesman Gualberto Ranieri declined to comment Monday.

Fla. Town Hall Meeting Takes Explosive Turn Hundreds Turn Out For Health Reform Talk Shut Out; Scuffles Break Out TAMPA, Fla. (CBS) ― Angry protesters and strong supporters clashed at a health care reform town hall meeting in Tampa, Florida Thursday. The meeting which was scheduled to begin at 6:00p.m. drew hundreds of people who quickly began to overwhelm staff and event organizers at the front entrance. As the building filled to capacity and police started denying people entry. Hundreds were locked out of the event at the Children's Board Building and some of them started banging on windows and...

Last week I noticed an odd, inexplicable provision in the House bill. Page 65, Section 164 sets aside $10 Billion for "eligible" health plans...for retirees. Not only that, it specifies the retirees can be as young as 55 yrs old. Now, I know very very few non-union private companies offer retirement health care plans, especially not at 55. House Bill So I suspected this was a payoff to the UAW and other unions. I called my Congressman and Senators but NO ONE could explain this to me. NOW TODAY I SEE CONFIRMATION OF MY SUSPICIONS. At the linked article, they...

The United Auto Workers and its union allies have quietly launched a campaign aimed at pressuring Toyota not to close the NUMMI plant in California now threatened by the break-up of a long-standing joint venture between the Japanese maker and General Motors. The e-mail-based campaign is urging supporters of the UAW to call their Congressmen and encourage them to keep the plant in Fremont, California open. The factory, originally a GM plant, has been running for a quarter century as part of an alliance between the two erstwhile competitors. Toyota originally saw the joint venture as a way to test...

Lawmakers reach out to Toyota Jul. 23, 2009 WASHINGTON -- Members of California's congressional delegation are asking Toyota Motor Corp., officials what they could possibly do to help keep an automotive plant open in Fremont that employs 4,500 people. Toyota has decided to liquidate its stake in the California manufacturing plant, which it jointly operated with General Motors, a Japanese news agency reported Thursday. The plant was established in 1984. In their letter to Toyota President Akio Toyoda, lawmakers say the plant has been a great asset to the state's work force as well as to the company. They say...

Delphi’s plan for the United Automobile Workers offer[ed] a supplement to workers who retire before they are old enough to collect Social Security. So laying off workers in their 50s and early 60s imposes sudden additional costs on the pension fund. Spotting these trends, the federal pension guarantor began putting liens on Delphi’s offshore affiliates, which are not in bankruptcy. As recently as last September, the insurer was warning that it would fight in court to make the healthy parts of Delphi’s corporate family cover the pension costs. It was also counting on a promise made 10 years ago by...

First President Bush, then President Obama poured billions into General Motors and Chrysler to keep the companies alive but barely breathing. That was just for starters. Next came Obama's creation of an Auto Task Force to oversee the auto companies. To head the task force, the president picked Steve Rattner, a Wall Street investor with no experience in automaking but lots in raising campaign money for Obama and Democrats. GM and Chrysler were quickly restructured, mostly to the benefit of the United Auto Workers, the union which spent millions in 2008 to elect Obama and Democrats. The UAW now owns...

Toyota Motor Corp. reportedly plans to make a decision this month on whether to take over or shut down the Fremont auto plant it has run with General Motors Corp. since 1984.

General Motors has announced that it will quit its joint venture auto manufacturing plant, operated with Toyota, leaving the unionized facility's future in Toyota's hands. Toyota already sells 80% of the products built there, but the workforce is organized by the UAW, so if Toyota were to keep the facility open under its own management, it would find itself sitting across the bargaining table from the very union that seeks to organize its other plants in North America. New United Motor Manufacturing Company (NUMMI - pronounced "new me") is the sole remaining automobile manufacturing facility on the West Coast, and...

Hearings on GM's motion to approve its restructuring plan are set to start today in Manhattan bankruptcy court. The heart of the individual bondholders' objections to the Obama Administration's plan to save GM is that it is a sub rosa and unconstitutional effort to do an end-run around the bankruptcy code and to enrich the coffers of the UAW, a key political ally of President Obama. In vacating its brief stay in the Chrysler case, the Supreme Court refused to address the merits of similar allegations, but limited its order to the facts at hand and arguably left open the...

A Janesville, WI civic leader says he’s ready to give up on the possibility that his community will be a General Motors town again."It’s time to move on; that’s my view," John Beckord, president of Forward Janesville, said Friday after Janesville was passed over for production of a new GM car.Troy Clarke, president of General Motors North America, confirmed Friday that a next-generation subcompact car — as yet unnamed — will be built in Orion Township, Mich., assuming ongoing talks over economic incentives are successful. Janesville, whose GM factory saw the last of its vehicles roll off the assembly line...

In the 60’s a new buzzword; “globalization” hit the American Shores. While the youth of America were feverish with xenophilia about fashion, music, culture, the American worker became infected with xenophobia. Globalization happened. What is American is not American and what is not American is American. Someone needs to tell the UAW the 60’s are over

Constitutionality on auto pilot by: Alana Goodman, June 25, 2009 Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) knows a thing or two about the auto business. He worked in the industry for 25 years, which, according to him, is “more time than everybody on the Obama auto task force has spent in the car business by 25 years, since not a single one of them has spent a day in the car business in any way, shape or form.” The Obama administration’s auto task force, which is headed by former New York Times journalist Steve Rattner, has been criticized for its lack of...

Early in the Obama administration, Vice President Joe Biden described his role as "the president's confidant" and said he would be someone who would help shape policy and be in the room for every major decision. Democrats and even most Republicans agree that so far, Biden has kept that pledge and has made a relatively smooth transition from his senior position in the Senate to a supporting role at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The vice president's portfolio is expansive and diverse and his fingerprints are on domestic and foreign policy issues. Biden is the enforcer, deemed "Sheriff Joe"...

About 4,000 more salaried workers at General Motors Corp. will lose their jobs by the end of the year as the automaker continues to downsize.

Breaking on Fox.

Perrysburg, Ohio (AP) -- A new government council will help auto industry workers transition to new manufacturing opportunities, including jobs in alternative energy, Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday. Biden toured the northwestern Ohio headquarters of the Willard & Kelsey Solar Group, which plans to begin large-scale production of solar panels this year. The Toledo area has been hit hard by job losses in the auto industry and is banking on more green factory jobs. "I'm not going to sugarcoat this. Manufacturing is facing one of its toughest periods, in at least my lifetime," Biden said. But, he said, U.S....

President Barack Obama is creating a White House council to handle issues that affect American communities and workers tied to the automotive industry. The White House says Obama will sign an executive order Tuesday to establish the White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers. The council will be chaired by the president's economic adviser, Larry Summers, and his labor secretary, Hilda Solis.

We've found a snazzy interactive map that shows the location of the plant at every American-built car and light truck is assembled, along with information on that plant's unionization or lack thereof. The New York Times piece also lists the nation of origin for each vehicle's engine and transmission, and the overall effect is to provide tirade ammunition for both ends of the political spectrum. For example, if you know that unions (and the hand-wringin', gun-confiscatin', Kyoto-treaty-signin' parlor-pink liberals who enable them) have systematically destroyed everything that was once good and true about this country, you'll be able to point...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thR-lVuztIY

UAW workers walk off the job at a helicopter plant. Jesse Russell reports. Workers represented by the United Auto Workers at a Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. plant in Texas walked off the job on Monday. Nearly 2,500 workers are represented by the UAW at the plant and they are on strike to protest a contract proposal that increases medical costs and would outsource work for janitors at the plant. If adopted the contract could have cost 44 workers who handle janitorial duties at the plant their jobs. The workers voted 1,177 to 680 Sunday against the new contract proposal. However,...

Caterpillar Inc. is emptying out its Illinois factories at the fastest rate in a quarter-century as it copes with a wrenching drop in global demand by accelerating a shift to producing equipment in lower-cost locales. After the latest cutbacks, which have been playing out in recent weeks, the number of United Auto Workers members on the job at Caterpillar's factory near Aurora is expected to be down by nearly half, to about 1,100, says Local 145 President Mark Patton. Plants in Pontiac and Decatur are expected to see equal drops, union leaders estimate. And at plants in the company's hometown...

With all the rubbernecking surrounding GM's bankruptcy, you'd think that more time would have been spent considering the most critical part of the deal -- what's left. Which of GM's famous brands are being kept, which are being thrown out and which are being sold? Many won't know that these questions have already been answered by top GM executives and the White House automotive task force. Fewer still will realize that the decisionmakers have erred badly, succumbing to the same mix of internal power politics, protectionism and aversion to engineering risk that set GM on its downward spiral almost 50...

Lawmakers Chide Automakers Over Dealership Cuts GM Issues State-by-State Closings List By Dan Eggen and Kendra Marr Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, June 13, 2009 Out of the 1,323 General Motors dealers targeted for elimination, the most will come from Pennsylvania. Ninety dealerships will be forced to wind down in the state. Pennsylvania is followed by Ohio with 79, Illinois with 66, California with 65 and New York with 60. GM, which has declined to name individual dealers, released the state-by-state list for the first time yesterday to a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. And lawmakers vented their frustration, demanding...

Someone please check and see if the motto “E Pluribus Unum” is still on the back of the dollar bill. I’m afraid to look; I strongly suspect it has been replaced by “Nullum Beneficium Est Impunitum” - - “no good deed goes unpunished.” The Obamacrats in Washington seem to take great delight in finding ways to reward bad behavior and punish those who have done good things. Winding its way through Congress now is the so-called “cash for clunkers” bill, which will reward owners of gas-guzzlers up to $4,500.00 per vehicle when they trade in for a new car. Those...