GM to Cut Pontiac, 21,000 Jobs
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| Mon, 04-27-2009 - 11:01am |
My heart goes out to all those people without jobs. :(
http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/GM-to-Cut-Pontiac-21-000-Jobs/kYLlxaZ6t0KZbtFj5yAwEw.cspx
General Motors says it will cut 21,000 hourly jobs and the entire Pontiac brand in what is being called a major restructuring effort.
Under the plan, GM will cut hourly employees from about 61,000 to around 40,000 in 2010. That represents about 1/3 of the total hourly workforce, and is between 7,000 and 8,000 more workers than the previously announced cuts.
The company will also be cutting about 1/3 of their plants by 2012. The plan calls for them to have 34 plants when the restructuring is complete. That's down from the current total of 47. No details are yet known on what plants will be cut.
GM will also cut 14 nameplates from their current total of 48, leaving them with 34. Again, no details on which nameplates will be cut, but it presumably includes all of Pontiac's nameplates. The company says it will concentrate on its core brands of Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC. It is also accelerating plans for Saturn and Hummer, with decisions expected on those brands by the end of 2009.
The company's dealerships will also be slashed by 42%, to about 3,000. GM currently has over 6,000 dealers.


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My heart goes out to all the workers of GM, also.
GO NOLES!!
Sadly, GM (& other American auto manufacturer's) has pretty much done this to themselves.
No US car maker has made a vehicle I'm interested in for years.
"I hope that they can retrain, because I honestly think that will be their only option."
I agree.
Back in the mid-70's, Detroit received a wake-up call. It's going to startle the dickens out of people who don't remember that time, but the U.S. auto industry was adamant that a 20 mpg car couldn't be built.
Fast forward to the first decade of this century. Once again, Detroit failed to read the writing on the wall; and insisted (like Republicans in power) that cheap fossil fuel would always be available. They (both the Republicans and Detroit) showed a dumbfounding lack of insight into global tensions, particularly those in the Middle East. Detroit fought against improved CAFE standards; also failed to improve vehicle quality and longevity. GM gave vehicles to middle management to drive then paid the tab for gas as well (including last summer when prices approached $4 a gallon). http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102316176 How's that for fiddling while Rome burned?!
I feel scant sympathy for the people at GM....not autoworkers nor middle management, nor the dimwits at the top. Their insularity and refusal to learn from past mistakes doomed them all.
Insistence on holding onto that which is not sustainable..... Dumb.
Jabberwocka
The auto industry has been
In the 70's I queued for gasoline. Plus I heard the message "buy a car that gets good mileage". Haven't bought an American gas hog since.
>"GM has talked about ending the program, but a spokesman said employees have built their lives around it. It allows many to live far from their offices and commute at little expense.
The spokesman said killing the program now would be "extremely" disruptive."<
Being without a job is "extremely disruptive".
I had a modicum of empathy for the U.S. based auto industry in that they merely decided to hitch their horses to the wagon of inept, arrogant, dimwitted, short-sighted BushCo leaders; as did much of the country to its subsequent dismay and chagrin!
Manufacturers like Toyota and Honda did not make the same disastrous mistake; and worked to improve fuel efficiency (the "cheap" part of fossil fuel), used innovative technologies (which may be more expensive in development but usually become more affordable with economies of scale), and refined their products for quality. I don't know of any auto manufacturer which has been unscathed in the global economic slowdown, but some have fared much better than others.
Am not sure what basis you used for the comment that "Prius's don't have the popularity Toyota thought they would." For a time, demand far outpaced supply. Dealers were even able to slap on a two thousand dollar surcharge!
Nor do I believe that oil will reign supreme in the future as it has done in the past. It's dirty, it's finite, and it has cost us far more than the price paid at the pump. Add the cost of environmental impact, the toll of our misbegotten war in Iraq, the badly-frayed international reputation we now have in pursuit of cheap fossil fuel access, to the pump price.... Waaaaaaay too high a cost.
I have already gone against the oil industry--drive a hybrid, moved closer into a metropolitan area, consolidate trips, and try to use energy frugally. It's my devout hope that I and others like me will be able to gradually and inexorably make the shift to other sources of energy which are clean, renewable, and thus sustainable. Please understand that it's not change for change's own sake that I argue. In fact, it sounds very much like you have a similar view.
Regarding Reagan--he may have played a role in expanding Japanese cars into the U.S. marketplace but there was already competition from European carmakers like Mercedes and BMW. IF we truly want capitalism to work, it will have to be done with acknowledgment that the theory is not perfect nor will it always serve the needs of the majority of people, a majority of the time. Nixon opened up China. It could be argued that he uncorked a genie which has since served up many of our wishes for a nominal price. But in so doing, we put our own factories and workers out of business. Not a perfect world. Had Nixon NOT made those first overtures, we might well be seeing a militaristic, ideologically blinded China, on the model of North Korea! Maybe we would have still been actively involved in cold war.
BTW, I lived in Japan for a number of years during the 50's, 60's and 70's (not continuously). There was a time when "made in Japan" was synonymous with "junky" and "cheap". The Japanese changed, we should too.
Jabberwocka
Bread and circuses. Keep us preoccupied with the horsepower and appealing appearance of cars and the hoi-polloi won't think to question whether long term pain is worth short term gain. Heck, Detroit was operating under "planned obsolescence" for a long time!
My family came back from Okinawa to Detroit, right before the 1973 Arab oil embargo. It was absolutely amazing to hear the UAW and the Big Three moan and kvetch about building smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles. "Can't be done", they said. "Too dangerous", they said.
Didn't play at all well with my family--we'd seen it done, and done more or less safely, on the pot-holed streets and hairpin-turn roads of Okinawa.
Jabberwocka
Since the early 70's I've driven a Toyota Corolla & Tercel. Now I have a not so fuel efficient Mitsubishi Outlander but compared to US cars, it's size, it's a gasoline miser. I'm from the UK where most US cars of the past would have difficulty manoeuvring on the narrow roads.
Edited 4/29/2009 10:08 am ET by libraone
This from HybridCarBlog.com
<Toyota Prius on a dealer lot. In December, however, Prius sales fell 45 percent according to the AP. But it isn't just hybrid cars that are getting hit hard, but fuel efficiency in general, as Toyota and Honda posted bigger sales declines than their US competitors.>>
Let's take another perspective. I drive the same car I've had for 8 years. It's a 1995 Ford Explorer with 159,000 miles on it. It runs well, it's paid for, it costs me little in maintenance, little in insurance.
Now I could dump that car and run out and buy myself a new hybrid. My Explorer, at its age and mileage, would probably get dumped in a
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