Monday - November 21, 2005

GM: Shut ‘Em Down!

Just in case you haven’t been keeping track of current events, GM is bleeding money all over the place because of a ridiculous retirement plan and health care benefits that the UAW squeezed out of the automaker over the last twenty years. So, in order to keep paying retirement and healthcare for workers who are no longer making cars, GM is being forced to close plants and layoff workers who currently are making cars.

I just typed that and I had to re-read it three times before I realized just how ridiculous it sounds. Isn’t this the same kind of plan that caused Fwance to become the useless entity that it currently is? Help me out here, folks! How does this help our economy and more importantly, how do we get out of this mess? Do we kill off the UAW or just let GM outsource more jobs overseas? What happens then? How can we afford to buy cars if we’re all unemployed? Help me make sense of this. It’s starting to look like John Galt needs to go ahead and turn off the motor of the world** ....

GM to Cut 30,000 Jobs, Close 9 Plants
DETROIT (AP)

General Motors Corp. (GM) will eliminate 30,000 jobs and close nine North American assembly, stamping and powertrain plants by 2008 as part of an effort to get production in line with demand and position the world’s biggest automaker to start making money again after absorbing nearly $4 billion in losses so far this year.

The announcement Monday by Rick Wagoner, GM’s chairman and CEO, represents 5,000 more job cuts than the 25,000 that the automaker had previously indicated it planned to cut. The 30,000 job cuts represents about 9 percent of GM’s global work force of about 325,000 people.

“The decisions we are announcing today were very difficult to reach because of their impact on our employees and the communities where we live and work,” Wagoner told employees. “But these actions are necessary for GM to get its costs in line with our major global competitors. In short, they are an essential part of our plan to return our North American operations to profitability as soon as possible.”

The plan will cut the number of vehicles GM is able to build in North America by about 1 million a year by the end of 2008. GM said the assembly plants that will close are in Oklahoma City, Lansing, Mich., Spring Hill, Tenn., Doraville, Ga., and Ontario, Canada. A shift also will be removed at a plant in Moraine, Ohio.

An engine facility in Flint, Mich., will close, along with a separate powertrain facility in Ontario and metal centers in Lansing and Pittsburgh. Wagoner said GM also will close three service and parts operations facilities. They are in Ypsilanti, Mich., and Portland, Ore. One other site will to be announced later.

GM said the plan is to achieve $7 billion in cost reductions on a running rate basis by the end of 2006 - $1 billion above its previously indicated target.

- Read more on this moto-madness here

** - “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand.

Posted by The Skipper     on 11/21/2005 at 11:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Unions-Labor •  
• Comments (23) • Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

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