The Gravest Of Mistakes
Back in August, before I took my ridiculously long hiatus from blogging on this site (due to academia), I wrote an article about why I wanted GM to survive. Unfortunately, due to some news late last night, it looks like it’s going to be much harder for my favorite three brands, not to mention the entirety of GM and the other two of the Big Three, to survive. It saddens me, too: just last Friday I was walking the floor of the New England International Auto Show in Boston, looking at the newest of what every automaker had to offer. All I could think while walking through Cadillac, Pontiac, and Saturn (among other American brands) was “there’s too much potential for them to go down.” Due to a certain UAW (that’s United Auto Workers union), the age of the American automaker may be coming to an end as we know it. Why am I so ready to point a finger at the UAW? Read on.
Outdatedness Requires Amends
I don’t like the UAW. I think they’re a fairly gigantic reason for the majority of the Big Three’s current issues. Before I go into why, however, I’d like to give a brief history on Unions as a lead into why they should no longer exist in the automotive industry. Wikipedia defines a union as “an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages, hours, and working conditions.” This definition happens to fit the current status of the UAW perfectly. Some of the first trade unions in the United States battled harsh or unsafe working conditions, work days that lasted far too long, and child labor. As the government did not enforce laws regulating any of those issues back then, the unions were necessary. Today however, it’s a different story.
Until the bill failed last night, the UAW was lobbying for the “bailout package” for the Big Three. Without the bailout, the workers associated with the UAW would no longer have work to do at all: if GM, Ford, and Chrysler file for bankruptcy, job cutting will come as standard; this is a given. Why, then, would the UAW not sacrifice some of their “rights” to try to save their jobs? It baffles me.
When “Right” Becomes “Ridiculous”
An interesting post from an engineer who has had experience working in union appeared on the internet not long ago. His whole writing and other opinions can be found here, but here’s an important excerpt of what he’s seen of the UAW:
Oh and a bit about working with the union in factories. You can’t touch anything. For example if you’re a process improvement engineer and you need to figure out how to improve a process. You need to stand and watch some guy with only a high school diploma do it. You can’t touch anything. See a piece of trash on the ground. Leave it (even if it’s a safety hazard) if the floor sweeper sees you, you’ll have another grievance because you’re “Taking his job away”.
Union rules and regulations seem to only slow down and hinder practical labor… and then it gets worse. In the following quote, it’s nearly clear as day why certain automotive products from American companies are unreliable:
We have a project going on “Why is this bolt failing” on a certain product of ours. Turns out that it is over torqued at the factory. So management and the powers that be put out an official decree: No air wrenches on X bolt. The union continues to use them. Legally we can’t ‘take them away’ or go into their tool boxes after they leave. So our bolt continues to fail because Joe Blow is too damn lazy to use a proper torque wrench.
It’s clearly one thing to slow production, but it’s another thing entirely to damage it. No wonder Americans turn to imports in the face of such poor construction at the hands of the unionized worker. Speaking of imports:
It’s great hearing UAW employees try and spread rumors and stupid falsities about Toyota’s non-union plants. I work in a UAW shop and most of what they say sounds like the Red Scare. “But I hear that Toyota requires you to sign over your first born” “I hear that Toyota only pays them $1.24 an hour”. I have friends that work in the Evansville plant. Everyone loves the place. On site pharmacy and health clinic (100% Free), among other things.
Is it just me, or is that absolutely ridiculous?
Concessions And Demands
A word of advice to the UAW: when your jobs are at stake, don’t make ridiculous demands. Make offers of concessions instead. When the UAW finally offered to end their long-used “job banks,” which requires the Big Three to pay workers who are currently not working. It is undoubtedly true that such a practice puts major financial strain on the companies and probably should never have existed in the first place, but what I find outrageous is that a certain UAW Local (that of Charlotte apparently had the nerve to consider asking for a seat on the GM Board as a trade for cutting the “job banks.” They must not get it: it’s their miscellaneous rights or their careers. Make a choice. It isn’t hard.
So What Do I Think?
I think the gravest mistake that GM, Ford, and Chrysler all made was to let the UAW destroy them slowly through demanding rights, compensations, and other ridiculous conquests. Unions were created to protect workers from the company, and yet, in the most ironic way, the company now needs to be protected from its workers. If the Big Three are to live on, the unions must fall. Do you see Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, Mercedes, or Nissan having major problems right now? No. Why? Because even though some of these may have unions, the companies are not hampered by insane restrictions somehow elicited by those unions. The American auto industry’s survival depends on at least the reigning-in of the UAW, and if that’s not enough to save them, the UAW should be disbanded entirely. Without the Big Three, our economy will suffer. Without the Big Three, American automakers will never get a chance to right themselves and finally move in a better direction. Without the Big Three, I will never get to drive that gorgeous Pontiac Solstice Coupe I saw at the Auto Show last week.
