# UAW Chief Sees Volts Being Sold at a Loss



## EVDL Archive (Jul 26, 2007)

Gettelfinger said automakers were going to have to charge more for still-emerging alternatives, such as the plug-in hybrid Volt.

More...


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## xrotaryguy (Jul 26, 2007)

> Gettelfinger, who lead the UAW through a historic contract round with the U.S. automakers last year, said the Detroit Three deserve more credit for the more than $20 billion they invest annually in research and development.


lol, the fact that the big three only invest a combined 20 billion per year in new product development is at once sad and painfully evident. Toyota invests nearly that amount every year all by its self. Gettelfinger, you're a schmuck. You are one of the jerks that is responsible for the American auto industry's technology deficit. Get bent!



> He also said critics of the industry needed to recognize that far more could be done to make traditional gas-burning engines more fuel efficient.


No, internal combustion will never be much more than 23% efficient which is pathetic. The auto industry has already made internal combustion motors about as efficient as they will ever be. At their best, IC motors could theoretically be as much as 40% efficient, and even that is pathetic compared to the 90% efficiency of a simple electric motor. That said, 40% efficiency will never be achieved.



> Gettelfinger told Reuters after his speech that GM was still planning to build the Volt in a Detroit assembly plant.


Have fun paying union slackers for 8 hours of work at $27.00 per hour to insert tab A into slot B for only 5 hours. If the volt is sold at a loss, the Union will be the reason why. The technology is not the problem. The union has been the problem for about 30 years and it still is.


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## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

Quote:
"automakers were going to have to charge more for still-emerging alternatives".....like union workers!!!!!

If we small people on our own can build fine electric cars, there is NO reason that all of the auotmakers can't.

Except we aren't under the oil companies thumb....


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## vrod (Jan 4, 2008)

Wait a minute!!!!! I guess you've never worked at a manufacturing plant.I have.When is the last time you put a truck tire on?Try 360 in seven and a half hours.That was before tire manipulators and five socket torque machines.That was by hand with a tire fork and an impact.Half the guys in my area have had back surgery,both hands cut open for carpal tunnel ,most are in their late 30s or early 40s.I agree the UAW has sucked the life out of Detroit but that is another topic.I can tell you this ,The people I work with earn their pay.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Fuel cells more economical than EVs? BULLS***!!!!!!!!!!!

They are simply borrowing a page out of the old playbook used to shut the EV down a few years ago. 

xrotoryguy, you are bang on about the efficiency ceiling of the ICE. Thats what pisses me off with a auto industry that demands people to trade up every 2-5 years WHY????? its just a new spin on an old idea. Oh.....right, this is GM we are talking about here.

As I said before, I have serious doubts that GM will ever sell the volt. They are already doing everything they can to sabotage the project with nearly every news release. At this point I don't even care anymore. Maybe when GM gets bought out by toyota, or goes into receivership we can get down to business and reverse engineer all those surviving EV1s that are still out there.


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## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

I have worked on assembly lines and production painting lines.
I have quite a few friends and relatives that have worked for the unions.
Quite a few of them told of how they stole time and materials from their jobs. And when the word STRIKE showed up they were the first to go for it.
Our local steel mill was a good example. 
The striking workers would come around to outlying towns to look for work but wanted "cash" so it wouldn't screw up their unemployment/strike pay.
The employees (night shift), would sleep for an hour or two, while the night foreman went to the tavern for a couple beers.
Wet rag fights were a popular diversion.
One guy worked in the repair machine shop and never touched a job for the mill. He worked on snowmobile, motorcycle, lawn mower parts etc.
At the tavern he would still bitch about the working conditions and pay.
If that mill had recieved all the work it paid WELL for, it would still be in operation.
Go to an estate sale in the town and you will see many tools etc with the Mill name on them, "They owe me" was the thought as they left with shop tools in their lunchboxes.
Just because a guy belongs to a union doesn't mean his work is any better than a regular, trained, conscience worker....it is just harder to fire him!!!!!


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## xrotaryguy (Jul 26, 2007)

Jees vrod, how old are you man? I hope that you weren't manually installing tires recently. That would only add to my argument against unions. And yes, I have worked on an assembly line. I worked in the spray booth of a motor home manufacturing plant. I sanded, masked, base coated, unmasked, hunted meticulously for imperfections and discolorations (this is not good for your eyes by the way  ), sanded, masked, touched up, unmasked, wiped down, and clear coated 40' coaches for 10 hours a day. It was not a union job, so I made a reasonable amount of money for a semi-skilled laborer. Not enough to comfortably raise a family, but then it shouldn't be. I was doing the same thing that any semi-educated person could do. If you can make $20+ per hour mounting tires, that's great... until a machine comes along to do your job faster, cheaper and more accurately than than any manual laborer. When that happens, you better be ready for it. Resting on your laurels while performing manual labor at inflated rates is not a sustainable formula for success, nor is it anything to brag about or to be proud of.

Oh, and when I claim that some union workers only work five hour days but get paid for eight, I am not expressing my opinion. This is fact and it is called the pegged rate system. When GM automates a plant, the UAW requires that the employees continue to receive the same pay that they would have if the plant had never been automated. This was one of the issues that GM was so unhappy about back in the early 90's when the UAW went on strike for a month and a half (if memory serves). What a joke. Union workers went on strike because they thought that they should be paid to work 8 hours at inflated rates even though the same old job only required 5 hours in GM's newer automated plants.

Also, GM is required to staff many of its union plants at 80%+ regardless of whether or not sufficient demand exists for the cars produced in that plant. And if GM closes the plant, the workers are given very generous severance packages. These plants often stay open despite insufficient product demand; cars sitting on lots selling at a loss, etc. further driving down brand value. Naturally, the workers in those plants don't exactly need to burn the midnight oil to meed demand... so they don't. Sad.

We Americans are supposed to be innovators. Installing tires until the tendons in your hands don't work anymore isn't innovation. Not even the 3rd world does things that way anymore. But when unions are involved, all kinds of rules come into play that keep union plants from automating. Meanwhile, non-union employers are making cars in automated plants and selling them at a greater profit. Eventually, those non-union corporations have a huge lead over legacy manufacturers (manufacturers that are saddled with union costs). They invest more in their product every year. Toyota invests close to 17 billion per year vs about 8 billion per year at GM. Not only that, but GM distributes its development dollars over the GMC Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer (and to a lesser extent: Daewoo, Suzuki and Saab... maybe more. I can't keep track of them all. ) product lines. Toyota distributes its development dollars over only 3 brands: Toyota, Lexus, and Scion. This is the biggest reason why Toyota's has such an advantage over GM, and it all boils down to the ridiculous rules maintained by the unions.

US workers need to educate themselves rather than work continue to work in a dieing industry while demanding unreasonable wages. Working with your hands is, comparatively speaking, a thing of the past. Developing new sustainable machinery (like electric cars), designing the automated plants that replace manual laborers, programming the computers that run the machinery that builds the products produced at those automated plants are all examples of the work force of the future (this should be the work force of the present, but I guess US workers are slow to catch on). 

Here's a scary thought for you... China has more star students that the US has students. 

Organized labor has not place in the 21st century. We need to stop flexing out muscles and start exercising out brains.


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## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

Check out this use of the Union mentality:

UAW workers may strike in five GM plants. The Detroit Free Press (4/5, Merx) reported that "General Motors Corp. (GM) faces the possibility of strikes at five plants in Michigan, Ohio and Texas as early as April 13 if the automaker is unable to reach local contract agreements at those UAW locals within 10 days." The strike "threat could further slow vehicle production at GM, where a shortage of parts from striking supplier American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings has affected operations at 30 facilities, including full shutdowns at 10 assembly, engine and transmission plants." It is not specifically clear yet "what issues in local negotiations caused the unions to issue the strike notices." The Detroit Free Press noted that "GM and many of its UAW locals continue to negotiate local contracts. Under the UAW system, the national union bargains for pay and economic benefits while union locals hammer out work rules." 

WPost columnist criticizes American Axle strike. In a Washington Post (4/6, G2) column, Warren Brown wrote that the strike against American Axle "has wiped out tens of thousands of units of production -- about 75,000 GM trucks." The strike has "forced production cuts...at a most propitious time, when consumers...are buying substantially fewer fuel-thirsty trucks." From this "perspective, the strike...seems dumb on its face. Why shut down a company whose products are in low demand in the first place?" Brown questioned whether strike is actually "doing management a favor," by "giving the company a free pass to do what it would have had to do anyway -- cut production and trim jobs." As "[w]e are at the beginning of a massive shift in a global understanding of the automobile," the auto industry needs to spend "lots and lots of money...to adapt to those changes." Brown concluded, "What it comes down to is a need for us all to understand and be committed to the concept of equality of sacrifice," such as "to give a little on labor contracts, to give a little on executive compensation and perks, to invest more in fuel economy, perhaps to pay more of the real costs of the fuel we burn in our cars and trucks."


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## xrotaryguy (Jul 26, 2007)

Amazing. The company loses 30+ billion dollars in one year, and unions decide that they have reason to strike. Considering the US auto industry's current condition, union employees are lucky to have jobs at all. Chrysler sold to Cerberus Group at a fire sale price and Delphi actually declared bankruptcy a couple years back. Union leaders need to take their blinders off. The industry is in trouble.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

If memory serves, it was 37 billion, give or take a billion.

I would like to think that worker's unions still have a role to play, but every now and then I see an incident that makes it hard to stay positive. There was a city workers strike in Vancouver a couple years ago, during an unusually hot summer. Garbage was on the streets for nearly 6 months. One of the main stumbling blocks in contract negotiations was that the union insisted on a contract that expired in the year 2010. Why 2010? because thats the year that Vancouver hosts the world winter Olympics. Thats why the strike lasted so long, the city could not afford to give into that condition, the city won, but it was a huge mess. I have seen other examples of this in other cities around the world, always strike at the most opportune moment.


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