General Motors has been hit so hard by the ongoing American Axle strikes that it's stopped production of the GMC Yukon, Denali, Sierra heavy-duty regular and extended cab, its commercial-duty pickup and variants of Chevrolet trucks and Tahoes. All the while, the General is still negotiating with the UAW over local contracts at some of its most important plants. To ease some of its supply problems, General Motors has reportedly offered as much as $200 million to American Axle for the funding of employee buyouts, early retirements and for the support of wage buy downs. The offer, however, is conditional on a quick resolution between American Axle and the UAW.Spokesman Dan Flores says that GM hopes "the offer will help bridge the gap between American Axle and the UAW and that they will be able to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement in the near future." Both the UAW and American Axle sound supportive of the investment; Bill Alford Jr., vice president and incoming president at UAW Local 235 says, "We're happy that General Motors is finally coming to the table and realizing that they have a stake in American Axle's future." For GM's sake and that of the striking workers, we hope the feuding companies find an amicable solution soon, though it seems unfortunate that GM, which is not exactly posting record profits itself, should need to cough up funding to make it happen.
[Source: The Detroit Free Press]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
John @ May 9th 2008 8:06AM
My one plea to our less than functional congress... BREAK the UAW for the sake of domestic production. Save jobs for REAL.
geo.stewart @ May 9th 2008 8:25AM
and you wonder why GM and Ford want to build in Mexico?
look at the 200M as an investment in time to come up with an alternate solution.
Ligor @ May 9th 2008 8:27AM
I second that, ad if I ws GM, i'd just go elsewhere for anything new that's coming up
let's see how Americal Axle will survive than
Dave @ May 9th 2008 8:58AM
UAW= moral morons.
Geo, as you know almost everyone is building in Mexico with the Toyota Tundra plant one of the newest. The problem is with the American companies is the UAW. The UAW is preventing further expansion into Mexico and that is why they aren't giving options. Toyota doesn't have these problems because the plants that they do have in the U.S. are non-union in non-union states.
Luis @ May 9th 2008 1:59PM
If they spent as much time working as they do striking...
Brian St. John @ May 9th 2008 8:16AM
It's STILL snowing there?
Bah @ May 9th 2008 12:01PM
No, that's the same old pic that AB has been reusing. Check weather.com
BowserUSC @ May 9th 2008 5:01PM
Damn. You beat me to it. No wonder they're on strike, they're miserable from the weather to start with.
inteller @ May 9th 2008 8:26AM
we should start a fund to KEEP the strike. I'd rather GM not start making bloated SUVs again.
Dave @ May 9th 2008 9:01AM
That's not very intelligent talk. I suppose you are one of the people that support Japanese companies.
MajorGeek @ May 9th 2008 1:36PM
GM and bloated SUV's? I would think you would be more annoyed at brands who decided they needed to compete who never had a large pickup or SUV before. Nissan and Toyota come to mind with their huge pickups and SUV's they didnt exist 5-10 years ago. They have also bloated the size of their smaller trucks as well.
GM has made pickups since the beginning and SUV's going waaaay back.
Andrew @ May 9th 2008 8:31AM
This whole scenario is tragic. I wish that everyone could realize that they're all in this together and that striking only makes things worse. I used to work for BFGoodrich in Ontario and we had a strike 4 years ago as part of the steelworkers union. Well, I guess we pissed off the company enough to be dispensable when one of BFG's plants needed to be closed. They workers might get a little money right now, but they just threw their job security out the window. Anybody can make axles, it's not some sort of coveted trade that you need to be speciallized to do. Once GM has time to tool up production elsewhere, look for parts to be all sourced from Mexico where striking like this would not be an occurance.
TBlueMax @ May 9th 2008 8:46AM
Motive Magazine [www.motivemag.com] ran a news brief on another UAW strike by UAW Local 31 a few days ago and although the brief itself was unremarkable, I found the title to their story to really hit the mark... "UAW Continues Storied Tradition of Cutting off Nose, Spiting Face"
I'm all for keeping jobs in America and strong employee/management relations but sometimes it is impossible to prevent someone (UAW) from committing suicide if they're hell-bent on doing it and then you have to look elsewhere (Mexico, etc.) for the work to get done.
Jeff Johnson @ May 9th 2008 8:59AM
Down here in Texas - we hate strikes. It's a sissy's way to accomplish things.
You don't like your job? either work harder for a raise, or go somewhere else. Strikes had their place in history as a good thing in the 30's in the meat packing industry when conditions REALLY were horrid, but this is 2008 there are no safety issues, or anything like that.
People seem to think they have a "right" to be employed somewhere, it makes me sick. GM just threw 200 million out the window to a bunch of stupid lazy people who in the long run are costing you, me, and even themselves money. How much has GM bent over backwards for unions? Or rather I should ask, how much has GM been bent over a desk and nailed by the UAW? Want to see GM turn a profit? Get rid of unions.
elprogramer @ May 9th 2008 1:40PM
You really have no idea how the General Motors family of corporations works, do you?
Okay, first of all, you can't really "work harder"; things are set up on a timed schedule that keeps you at perfect pace with the rest of the factory, and by working that much harder, you're only proving you can do that much work in the first place. There's no bonus in the works, they just fire someone else and add his job to yours.
Hell, I've seen efficiency engineers so crooked and hungry for money/promotion that lower-level managers have to go to their bosses and say that their production schedules are impossible.
They don't care about you. Do what they say or you're fired.
Big Rocket @ May 9th 2008 4:06PM
elprogramer @ May 9th 2008 1:40PM wrote: "Do what they [management] say or you're fired."
Stop making delusional excuses for the UAW already. If it was even remotely that easy to get rid of UAW workers, do you really think the Big 3 would offer $70K to $100K per person to incentivize UAW workers to take early retirement?
Source:
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/06/03/chrysler-buyouts-hitting-snags/
Dude @ May 9th 2008 9:03AM
This is disgusting!
PiCASSO @ May 9th 2008 9:07AM
Another sad day for the automotive OEM's...
Adam Marcello @ May 9th 2008 9:18AM
My secret hope will be an autoblog post about GM opening a new plant in another country to make trucks and the malibu. I really dislike the UAW.
John @ May 9th 2008 9:57AM
My favorite picture is back! Those UAW guys walking in circles accomplishing nothing is the union in a nutshell!