UAW - Membership down to 477,000 members

[Rich Parsons]

I saw another article the other day and now this one caught my eye as well.

Cities face life without 16 Ford plants

http://www.yahoo.com/s/456547



What are your thoughts or comments on this?

It's been nearly a year since this Lake Erie port city of 68,000 began wrestling with its reality of a future without Ford. It's a future other American cities face now that the company plans to close 16 plants by 2012, some in places already hit hard by the loss of steel and other factory jobs.

 

[Grenadier]

This was a long time coming, and the writing was on the wall many years ago. This isn't just limited to the automotive industry, either.

Today's manufacturing situation isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. Manufacturers can certainly cut costs significantly, when they use foreign labor, compared to domestic labor. In a different country, the wages they pay are lower, and if I am not mistaken, they don't have to pay out benefits, etc., to nearly the same $$$ level as they would a domestic union worker.

 

[Rich Parsons]

This was a long time coming, and the writing was on the wall many years ago. This isn't just limited to the automotive industry, either.

Today's manufacturing situation isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. Manufacturers can certainly cut costs significantly, when they use foreign labor, compared to domestic labor. In a different country, the wages they pay are lower, and if I am not mistaken, they don't have to pay out benefits, etc., to nearly the same $$$ level as they would a domestic union worker.

The fixed costs associated with wages is there, but I think it has more to do with Pensions and with Medical costs, as I know GM spent around $6 Billion last year and probably again this year for just health care, on there 1.1 Million Retirees on the books.

What gets me is that while I live in south east Michigan, I see lots of people living and buying and working and buying more, including bigger houses and cars and vehicles, and not all of them are related to the Auto Industry.

So the days of people relying upon the auto industry for jobs are over. The days for textiles and other industries that have left (* which were a forshadow to those who paid attention *), the country to other countries to make things cheaper.