Northwestern Players lose Union bid

[Digetydog]

IMO both the unions and mgmt are to blame. The unions kept asking for excessive pay/benefits etc and mgmt continued to reward themselves with big pay packages while not adjusting to a dramatically changing market place. Very few designers were given the ability to design the cars they wanted to design but had to design what would be approved by mgmt.

I'd agree with this, but ultimately, the buck stops with management, not unions, so I apply more of the blame to them.

Poor quality, ultimately that's managements responsibility, not the workers.

Producing gas-guzzling cars in the early '70's while Toyota was introducing more fuel efficient cars rests totally with management.

Completely losing out on the executive baby-boomer market to BMW & Mercedes, that's on management. My grandfather could afford any mass produced car in the world, so he did, as he only drove the finest, a Cadillac. Drive near the ocean in Southern CA and it seems laughable today; for every 1 Cadillac there must be 250 BMWs.

Also, I've read before that management figured out decades ago (once again, I believe in the early '70's) that the pension agreements they negotiated with unions were unsustainable as workers were retiring too early with too generous a pension package. Once again, management wasn't pro-active in addressing this enormous problem. Like our government, they kicked the can down the road (who knows, they probably thought US taxpayers would ultimately bail them out).

So IMO, management killed Detroit, with a nice assist from unions.

For the most part, management really didn't have a choice when it came to dealing with unions. In industries with enormous fixed costs (airlines and auto makers), a major strike by union workers is devastating. Simply put, they could not afford to fight off a strike by the UAW. If managers forced a strike, they were (a) likely to lose eventually and (b) lose their jobs in the process. As a result, they caved in contract negotiations and tried to make profits in high margin products like Pickup Trucks. For a while, it worked.

This book provides an interesting take on the collapse: http://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Zero-Collap ... 030017151X

Just like the unions helped kill off most of the airlines, they eventually managed to kill off the big three by killing the Golden Goose instead of feeding it.

[SMU 86]

IMO both the unions and mgmt are to blame. The unions kept asking for excessive pay/benefits etc and mgmt continued to reward themselves with big pay packages while not adjusting to a dramatically changing market place. Very few designers were given the ability to design the cars they wanted to design but had to design what would be approved by mgmt.

I'd agree with this, but ultimately, the buck stops with management, not unions, so I apply more of the blame to them.

Poor quality, ultimately that's managements responsibility, not the workers.

Producing gas-guzzling cars in the early '70's while Toyota was introducing more fuel efficient cars rests totally with management.

Completely losing out on the executive baby-boomer market to BMW & Mercedes, that's on management. My grandfather could afford any mass produced car in the world, so he did, as he only drove the finest, a Cadillac. Drive near the ocean in Southern CA and it seems laughable today; for every 1 Cadillac there must be 250 BMWs.

Also, I've read before that management figured out decades ago (I believe in the early '70's) that the pension agreements they negotiated with unions were unsustainable as workers were retiring too early with too generous a pension package. Once again, management wasn't pro-active in addressing this enormous problem. Like our government, they kicked the can down the road (who knows, they probably thought US taxpayers would ultimately bail them out).

So IMO, management killed Detroit, with a nice assist from unions.

Good post. And let's not forget the cars like the Ford Escort. I knew someone that took there Ford Escort in to the Ford Dealership to get it fixed because the engine broke down on him. The mechanic asked him how many miles he had on the car and he told him about 30,000. The mechanic's response was "It lasted that long?"

[BigT3x]

The auto thing had nothing to do with the unions. The product itself was inferior. It was built using an inferior process - for example, every worker in a Toyota factory could hit a button and stop the line, with no punishment, when a mistake was made. American manufacturers would keep the line running at all costs. So the messed up car continues down the line, then someone else would disassemble the car out in the parking lot to fix the mistake. But only if the mistake was obvious. Subtle mistakes just went on out to the dealership. Cars were coming off the line that were half Buick, half Chevy. It had nothing to do with the unions.

GM had a joint factory with Toyota at one point called NUMMI. Using the Toyota process, GM union workers produced quality cars at a high profit for the company.

ANYWAY. So no comment on football players potentially having to pay their own medical bills for injuries sustained on the field? I don't understand the argument that you can't strike if you aren't in a union. Let's say the starting QB, the three best receivers, and the kicker decide to sit out a game. That'll have a HUGE impact on a team and the coach would have zero leverage. Sounds like the ideal setup for a strike to me...

[East Coast Mustang]

ANYWAY. So no comment on football players potentially having to pay their own medical bills for injuries sustained on the field? I don't understand the argument that you can't strike if you aren't in a union. Let's say the starting QB, the three best receivers, and the kicker decide to sit out a game. That'll have a HUGE impact on a team and the coach would have zero leverage. Sounds like the ideal setup for a strike to me...

Maybe all of the Baylor WRs and Shawn Oakman will go on strike for the Baylor game. That would be nice

[JoeKidd]

The auto thing had nothing to do with the unions. The product itself was inferior. It was built using an inferior process - for example, every worker in a Toyota factory could hit a button and stop the line, with no punishment, when a mistake was made. American manufacturers would keep the line running at all costs. So the messed up car continues down the line, then someone else would disassemble the car out in the parking lot to fix the mistake. But only if the mistake was obvious. Subtle mistakes just went on out to the dealership. Cars were coming off the line that were half Buick, half Chevy. It had nothing to do with the unions.

GM had a joint factory with Toyota at one point called NUMMI. Using the Toyota process, GM union workers produced quality cars at a high profit for the company.

ANYWAY. So no comment on football players potentially having to pay their own medical bills for injuries sustained on the field? I don't understand the argument that you can't strike if you aren't in a union. Let's say the starting QB, the three best receivers, and the kicker decide to sit out a game. That'll have a HUGE impact on a team and the coach would have zero leverage. Sounds like the ideal setup for a strike to me...

The quality of the product had nothing to do with the long-term liabilities the UAW left the auto-manufacturers with in the way of pensions that couldn't be funded.

All athletes if injured while playing their sport have their surgeries and post-surgery care taken care of by their University as long as they use their Doctors.