Ford and GM say: "Accept paycut or lose your jobs"
Aug 26 2007 15:14
From today's Observer:
Quote:
Ford and General Motors have threatened to leave Detroit and take their car manufacturing operations overseas if unions do not agree to a massive pay cut for hourly paid workers
In some sense, this issue has been around for years but I'm sure this is the first time a major company has been so explicity open about it.
Aug 27 2007 14:23
#2
Not quite the same issue, but Ford in Australia just locked out about 1,200 workers due to a strike in a parts supply firm:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22295138-2,00.html
Quote:
MORE than 1200 Ford workers in Victoria are to be stood down indefinitely without pay from tonight as a new industrial dispute threatens to cripple Australia's car industry.
More than 240 workers at Venture Industries, a former Ford unit that supplies the car manufacturer with plastic components, walked off the job today in a row over unpaid entitlements.
Union leaders say Venture employees are owed $25 million in entitlements, after the company announced it would close its Broadmeadows factory and move to a new site on the other side of Melbourne.
Tonight, Ford said 800 assembly line workers based at Broadmeadows and 450 engine workers at its Geelong plant would be stood down from close of business today until the supply of Venture products resumed.
"This is a temporary action only and their jobs at Ford are not at risk. Other Ford employees will continue working," Ford spokeswoman Sinead McAlary said.
Aug 28 2007 11:48
#3
Industrial action isn't new to Broadmeadows...
http://libcom.org/history/1972-broadmeadows-ford-workers-strike
Well, actually this has been their mode of operation for decades now. However, if as this implies, GM and Ford are essentially threatening to move all of their operations and offices out of Detroit, then that is new.
I think the idea that GM and Ford would move their headquarters out of the U.S. is more or less an empty threat. That they would move them out of Detroit is indeed possible. The fact is that Toyota, Honda and Nissan are kicking their butts and they constantly are losing market share, even though Toyota in particular has opened multiple U.S. plants to produce for the U.S. market.
I expect the UAW (United Auto Workers) to more or less roll-over. We shall see.
Chris