Tag: UAW (page 2)

It certainly doesn't seem like a success for the taxpayers.  GM stock is about $30 today, and unless it gets up to $54, the taxpayers lose money on the deal.  Why would it go up?  You want to fight high gas prices by buying a Volt?  How does $41 grand a pop sound? And still GM loses money on every one it sells even at that price.  Not only that but we are seeing that government subsidies for electric cars is good tax money wasted in any case.

UAW President Bob King and about 100 UAW members flooded the first floor of the Guardian Building in Detroit shortly after 2 p.m. today and forced Bank of America to temporarily close.

King and the UAW protested the bank's receipt of taxpayer dollars and claimed that the bank paid no taxes in 2009.

King then led a larger group of UAW members in a chant at the corner of Griswold and Congress in Detroit.

"Banks get bailed out people get sold out," King chanted as the crowd joined in.

Mark Steyn at the time correctly called GM a company that provided health care and retirement benefits to hundreds of thousands of policy holders while also happening to make cars on the side. They were doomed.

But, guess who stepped up to the plate (though some of us quite reluctantly?)

Although it didn't make a net profit last year, Chrysler Group LLC will give bonuses to its employees in the United States and Canada to recognize their efforts over the past year.

Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne revealed the plan for "performance award payments" today in a conference call outlining fourth-quarter and full-year financial results. Employees were informed by e-mail.

"It would have been inexcusable to not recognize what our people have done," Marchionne told analysts, explaining that the board agreed that rewarding Chrysler workers was more prudent than reducing the loss on the bottom line.

The amount will be disclosed in about a week, he said. Hourly and salaried workers will get bonuses.

It cannot be called profit sharing, as the automaker reported a loss of $652 million for the year. Marchionne said it is better classified as a performance award.

Now, how cool is that?  In other words, next time your household runs in the red ink, go out and have a steak and lobster dinner and just tell yourself that you deserve a reward.  And, oh, by the way... the folks at the next table?  You pick up the tab.  Damn, if Marchionne doesn't illustrate to folks that the Italians have been socialists since the days of Moussolini, nothing will.

The actual competitiveness of the Big Three never rated highly as a value for the government's restructuring of the industry, and the union has shown it is prone to act cavalierly towards those same companies as they struggle back toward profitability. This is the natural consequence of a "bankruptcy" process that shielded the union from the consequences of its own avarice. Whether out of greed or ignorance, the UAW could still bring these companies down.

GM breached a contract promising to fund a voluntary employee beneficiary association, or VEBA, for Delphi retirees, according to the lawsuit filed yesterday in Detroit federal court. General Motors, Delphi's former owner, made the promise in 2007. The court overseeing Delphi's bankruptcy approved the agreement in October 2009, the union said.

In October, "the UAW made a written demand that the company honor its contractual obligation to make the foregoing payment to the DC VEBA," the union said in its complaint. In November, "that UAW demand was rejected and since that time the company has failed and refused to make the contractually required payment."