Amen, Jerry. *NM*
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Re: GM Plant Closings...St Catherine?
Joe -
The Lansing Craft Centre (which builds the SSR pickup) has been idled 31 out of the last 51 weeks anyway, as the product is dead in the marketplace.Comment
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Re: GM Plant Closings...St Catherine?
SSR:neat looking trucks but weight and initial costs discourage sales. god help GM. mikeComment
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Re: The core problem
I agree with you in part. People in big companies do not act like people in small companies and they need to relearn those lessons.
When things are good, you profit. When things are bad, you tighten your belt, conserve money, and work harder at making the compnay profitable again. If that involves you not getting any money, then that is life.
HOWEVER, in big business, that isn't happening and I don't think ever happened.
Hourly workers get the blame today, but it isn't all or even most of their fault.
In the '80s when Chrysler was taking its last plunge, the workers did take cuts and concessions. They did that with the agreements that when things get good again, they get to profit also by their hard work and commitment to the company. The same with steel, since many like to point to it as a union failure.
Did that happen?
Jerry, give me one of your Corvettes. I'll sell it for money than you can dream and split the profits with you plus give you your costs.
Now if I sell it and "forget" to give you any of the money, are you going to give me another Corvette to sell?
Many big companies a few key managers (CEO, President) frequently take the $1 per year salary while asking everyone else to hold at their salary or even take a cut. It sounds really noble. Then a few problems arise:
1. At a $10,000,000 a year salary or much more, a CEO is more than capable of living on what is in the bank for many, many years of no salary. Can you say the same for someone who is making $50,000 and has $2500 a month in mortgage, car loans, food bills, insurance payments, etc?
Give me $10 million for a year or two; I'll work for free for you for the next ten years.
2. Stock options, stock payments. Those $1 per year salaries never affect the stock, so the "poor" CEO runs out a week later and cashes in $2 million in stock. I wish I had to tighten my belt that tight. How many GM or any other workers can cash in more stock than many states have for a lottery? Real sacrifice.
3. The CEO has his Golden Umbrella. If all else fails and he gets canned, he still gets a $100,000,000 severance. The worker gets his unused vacation pay and maybe a couple of weeks if lucky.
And with all the inequality in financial rewards and sufferings, who made this mess? Did the guy bolting wheels on the Impala decide to market an SSR or to make the Impala out of a Camry? Did the guy on the forklift hauling engines decide to give nearly identical SUVs to every car line so that they flooded the market for Tahoes with various names?
The guys responsible take the least relative hit in suffering.
If John Doe came to your town, stole the savings from a dozen old people, stole their houses from them, and got caught, he'd end up in jail. A CEO can cause 100 times that damage and no one even blinks.
As to entitlement, in life, I agree, no you are not entitled to anything. When we got hit with hurricanes last year, we got out that day, surveyed the damage, took some pictures, and then we began cleaning things up and getting back to normal.
But in a big factory job, you make an agreement. The agreement gives you entitlement. You give this part of your life in exchange for the company doing certain things for you. Some of those included medical care and retirement benefits. It is kind of like a marriage, a partnership, or at least how marriage and partnerships are supposed to be. Each one has a job to do that benefits the other and in the long run, you take care of each other.
However, now those agreements are more like divorces. Grab the good sex while you are 25, work you to pay my way through medical school, toss you out as soon as I'm a doctor while I get another 25 year old.
Remember, GM made these agreements. Their top management made more money than the whole country. They thought they were God, and now they are finding they are mere mortals that have not made loyal friends of their subservient workers. They made the decisions and they had the lack of foresight, or maybe just plain arrogance to go this direction, and they should be the ones to pay the price.
Good leaders people will follow through the gates of Hell; bad leaders people shoot in the back.
Don't even get me going on NO and LA.Comment
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Re: The core problem
Amen, Mike. AmenComment
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Re: The core problem
My feelings exactly, especially with the $1 per year scam.Comment
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Having been there,
I couldn't agree more with this analysis.
It's management, that's responsible for the health and welfare of the company. Period. If the management is weak and short sighted, well, you see what you get. As an example, the COMPANY negotiated to give the hourly people a % of the profit if it exceeded some set figure. It's only been a few years ago that the hourly's got thousands in profit sharing. Unfortunately for the share holders, MANAGEMENT didn't NEGOTIATE a PAYBACK when times got lean. What kind of management strategey is that(Make it go away on my watch)?
As I stated on another forum, if GM still held 50% of the business in this country, there wouldn't be a problem now, would there?
They're not running the business and everyone of the hierarchy in GM and Ford both should be tossed out by the shareholders. Replacements hired at 1/3 the salary and no stock options. If you pull it out, you get a raise. If you don't, you're gone.Comment
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Re: Having been there,
1/3 the salary?
OK you try and find someone qualified to work for that much. Good luck. I know I am not willing to work for 1/3 my salary when I can make 3/3 of my salary!Comment
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Re: GM Plant Closings...St Catherine?
John-----
My brother just bought a brand new "2005 edition" of one of those crazy things.In Appreciation of John HinckleyComment
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Re: GM Plant Closings...St Catherine?
I have a brother that does dumb things, too.Comment
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Re: The core problem
Several years ago, a company I worked for had been shrinking for a decade yet the senior management continued to get healthy bonuses. Some management consultants and Board of Directors determined part of the performance problem was that the management did not have enough vested interest in the company, so they gave them the opportunity to buy $MM's in stock at rates low enough that the dividends paid for the stock. I never figured out why they got rewarded for such terrible performance. By the way it did not work. The company continued its efforts to shrink to prosperity and was bought out.Comment
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Re: The core problem
My dad worked in a steel mill that was having problems. The company hired business consultants to find what would turn around the company.
After the study, they reported:
1. Fire 1/4 of the management
2. Hire another 20% workers
3. Cancel all corporate bonuses
4. Increase production bonuses
They were thanks, dismissed, and then the company laid off 5% of the workers, gave the upper management a raise.
Hired another consulting firm to analyze their problems.
After the study, they reported:
1. Fire 1/3 of the management
2. Hire another 25% workers
3. Cancel all corporate bonuses
4. Increase production bonuses
You can guess what they did. Then they hired another consulting firm and you can guess what they said.
That steel mill went out of business about 15 years ago.Comment
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Maybe you misunderstood what I said.
If you can't make the company go, you're outa' here. If you think you can work for 3/3rds of your salary and be a failure you don't understand what I'm saying.
I just think you misunderstood what I said.Comment
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Re: Chris someone will work for 1/3 your salary *NM*
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Re: Chris someone will work for 1/3 your salary
Doubt that since I am now a stay at home dad and make zilch.!!!
Even so there were plenty of engineering jobs out there. Maybe not quite up to my old salary but close.Comment
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