GM Spring Hill to close

[Kheldane]

Yes, lots of great posts above, and I agree with almost all of it!!! Nissan is a good brand with great potential, the Ion was doomed for failure (I drove one and it was as if it was designed by monkeys, for monkeys, and built by monkeys), and GM has poor management, a big problem with unions, poor designs, poor quality, poor engineering, serious restrictions due to government regulations, etc.

What would I do if I were GM president?

1) Close every plant (in phases but as soon as possible) that is operating in the US.

2) Quickly take advantage of the new CAFTA agreement and open new plants in Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and (not sure if they're in CAFTA) possibly Panama. And beef up production in Mexico as much as possible.

3) Prohibit unions in the new plants.

4) Outsource auto design to Korea or China (not outsource, but set up design and engineering headquarters in Korea or China).

5) Move any manufacturing operations currently in Western Europe to Romania, Turkey, and possibly Morocco.

6) Cut most brands leaving the big ones: Chevy, Cadillac, Hummer, SAAB.

7) Quit selling cars at a loss with all kinds of discounts and rebates. Price them for profit and leverage the new lower manufacturing costs.

8) Quit selling cars based on patriotism and start marketing quality and fuel efficiency

9) Agressively persue hybrids/hydrogen/whatever else could make superior cost effective transport.

10) Probably some other things that I can't think of now

[MZT]

GM does succeed in making good products. The problem is they're usually not very good the first year or two on the market, and by the time the problems are fixed, the vehicle has a bad reputation.

The 2001-02 Oldsmobiles were some of the best passenger cars GM ever made. But it was just too late and nobody was paying any attention.

[ATLBrain]

The only Japanese manufacturers that have been consistantly good in the USA have been Toyota and Honda.

Hmmm, these are two of the three brands that I've bought since 1992 (including Lexus), and they've been great cars. My wife's happy with our new Odyssey (at least the first 6K miles). I'm still driving my BMW 540 too, and that's too fun to give up. So I really haven't paid any attention to GM or the others for some time. Although, I used to drive Avis rent a cars which were mostly GM models. That's where I turned sour on the overengineering.

I really do hope GM can turn itself around, but they will be smaller and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's better than not having a GM anymore. Toyota will take them over in the next couple of years and maybe Nissan/Renault too! Ford will still be up there.

It really is a shame that "the General" has fallen so far. Not long ago (70's and 80's), my mother and father were so loyal to GM with Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs (they rotated every 3 years). It was a patriotic/pride thing with them and many of their generation. Then in the late 80s, they had a Caddy with a V-6 engine that always stalled when accelerating from a stop (Dangerous!). My mother got so frustrated with it one day that she traded it in on a Accord (1990). Since then, they've had nothing but Honda/Acura and Lexus products. It's too bad when you consider that Mom and Dad are typical of so many who were once very loyal. They switched due to a bad experience, and they never returned. Dad almost bought a Caddy two years ago, but he was turned off by the bland styling.

[satalac]

Yes, lots of great posts above, and I agree with almost all of it!!! Nissan is a good brand with great potential, the Ion was doomed for failure (I drove one and it was as if it was designed by monkeys, for monkeys, and built by monkeys), and GM has poor management, a big problem with unions, poor designs, poor quality, poor engineering, serious restrictions due to government regulations, etc.

What would I do if I were GM president?

1) Close every plant (in phases but as soon as possible) that is operating in the US.

2) Quickly take advantage of the new CAFTA agreement and open new plants in Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and (not sure if they're in CAFTA) possibly Panama. And beef up production in Mexico as much as possible.

3) Prohibit unions in the new plants.

4) Outsource auto design to Korea or China (not outsource, but set up design and engineering headquarters in Korea or China).

5) Move any manufacturing operations currently in Western Europe to Romania, Turkey, and possibly Morocco.

6) Cut most brands leaving the big ones: Chevy, Cadillac, Hummer, SAAB.

7) Quit selling cars at a loss with all kinds of discounts and rebates. Price them for profit and leverage the new lower manufacturing costs.

8) Quit selling cars based on patriotism and start marketing quality and fuel efficiency

9) Agressively persue hybrids/hydrogen/whatever else could make superior cost effective transport.

10) Probably some other things that I can't think of now

i agree with most of what you said. i hate to agree with you on the opening new plants south of the border, because it takes a lot of jobs away from americans, but it would be a lot cheaper. but quality control will still be an issue, if not more than it is already. outsourcing auto design to korea or china would be a bad idea. they are known for making hyundai, kia and daewoo. not exactly the best looking cars in the world (although hyundai is getting a lot better except they've been using pinnafarina, the people who design some ferraris, to design the tiburon). and gm needs to drop saab. saab hasn't posted a profit since gm completly took it over in 2000. gm needs to keep these brands

Chevy: use this for family cars, trucks, suvs and of course the vette

Cadillac: change nothing with caddy, actually doing pretty well

Pontiac: more sporty cars for the out of college crowd. redesign the gto to go directly against the ford mustang, keep the solstice should be a hit, and have a sporty sedan to compete with the dodge charger

Saturn: this will be for the younger crowd. think of it as direct competition against toyota's new younger brand scion. have some boxy wagons that the kids like now and some sporty coupes. try and get the aftermarket to support it even before the cars come out.

Hummer: this is an image brand that has made money for gm. starting to lose some footing however with gas prices. would have to redesign the h2 into a friendlier vehicle without hurting its image. think displacement on demand or hybrid.

Olds: i love the idea of just having a hybrid/alternative fuel car brand.

[Plasticman]

I majored in Accounting and finance and I can tell you beyond a doubt that two things cause this: The union mentality and just downright mediocre "me too" type designs. The Doraville plant near us will be closing too and the labor costs plus benefits these people get are astronomical. I just don't understand why someone who performs a simple, repetitive labor job should "expect" to get $24.00 per hour. Now, being very conservative, I don't blame them for getting what they can as people will ask for as much as they can, but I do blame the company for caving to it.

I worked in a union plant at one time called International Paper. They were the laziest bunch of people I had ever worked with. When my machine went down own night, I picked up a broom and started sweeping and looking for things to do. The lead person/trainer who was on another machine came over and asked me what I thought I was doing. She said our contract says we didn't have to do anything but go in the breakroom and rest while our machine was down. I smiled and told her "That's okay I'm not in the union" and I continued sweeping while she stormed off back to her machine. The last straw was late one night (about 2 AM) I went into the lunch room to go to the bathroom and saw six people laying down sleeping in six booths. While I was walking out, the supervisor came in to get coffee from the machine and saw those people sleeping. He just smiled and went out. Nobody ever got punished. And to top it off, this job was soooo easy and the people were making $14.00 an hour and up and STILL complained and threatened to strike for more money. I quit a week later and got a job at a factory owned by a man and wife. I worked my way up into management and now am in charge of quality. That union plant closed less than six months later. Geeee.....I wonder why.

I'm not saying the GM workers were lazy because people are different, but based on the GM workers I"ve known, I KNOW they were highly overpaid for the skill levels of at least some of the jobs. Not to mention the exceptional benefits the company paid. It is just ridiculous.

[sleepy]

If--as was said above--GM takes its plants overseas to some nation that would defy most international agreements by outlawing independent labor unions, I hope that GM goes broke. Which, I suspect it would.

I majored in Accounting and finance and I can tell you beyond a doubt that two things cause this: The union mentality and just downright mediocre "me too" type designs. The Doraville plant near us will be closing too and the labor costs plus benefits these people get are astronomical. I just don't understand why someone who performs a simple, repetitive labor job should "expect" to get $24.00 per hour. Now, being very conservative, I don't blame them for getting what they can as people will ask for as much as they can, but I do blame the company for caving to it.

I'm not saying the GM workers were lazy because people are different, but based on the GM workers I"ve known, I KNOW they were highly overpaid for the skill levels of at least some of the jobs. Not to mention the exceptional benefits the company paid. It is just ridiculous.

Perhaps, they need to outsource the "bean counters" as well--the accountants and finance folks. They are at least to blame for GM's predicament as labor imho.

[Plasticman]

If--as was said above--GM takes its plants overseas to some nation that would defy most international agreements by outlawing independent labor unions, I hope that GM goes broke. Which, I suspect it would.

Perhaps, they need to outsource the "bean counters" as well--the accountants and finance folks. They are at least to blame for GM's predicament as labor imho.

Depends on the bean counters. The general perception in this country and the immediate knee jerk reaction perpetuated by our liberal media's bias is that it's always the crooked management at fault whenever a large corporation goes down in flames, especially if they have the dreaded title CEO. Well, there is some validity to that in that there are no doubt some crooked CEOs but the media has stereotyped all CEOs as greedy corporate people out to shaft the little guy to line their own pockets. My experience is there is enough greed to go around, whether you work in a plush office or you clean toilets at GM.

There is a culture in America that the unions have perpetuated that whoever we work for "owes" us or even we supposedly have a "right" to huge salaries for our work, health insurance, vacation time, holidays off, sick days, retirement plans, and even months off because we choose to have kids. Those things are all great if the company agrees to them and I don't blame people for taking what is offered, but we have nobody to blame but ourselves when our jobs go overseas because of the ever-increasing costs of doing business in the U.S. THe next time you see a picket line full of people striking because their health insurance was inreased by 5% or because their raises weren't what they "demanded", consider the impact this has on costs, followed by prices, and then followed by fewer jobs in America.

[Rural King]

On US ability to compete for its own domestic markets: I would blame unfair "free trade" deals (for most markets outside of automotive, which sees foreign firms coming here and competeing with us head to head in our own labor market) that make US production costs, esp. union, too expensive to compete against low wage and low cost nations (free trade works among nations reasonably equal in economic status and wages/costs -see the EU-, its pretty hard to say its fair among unequal partners- see Mexico in NAFTA/and all of CAFTA- in which few parties outside of large corporations benefit). Many US based corporations are more than willing to abandon their nation for cheaper labor markets and sell those goods back in the US to under-cut their domestic competitors, not to mention foreign based competition. Even patriotic and loyal companies have to move production overseas to compete, if their rivals do so and/or their competition is from low cost areas, just to survive. Its a vicious cycle IMO, that drives up stock prices, makes some corporate level execs alot of money for doing it, and then leaves the nation on a path to financial instability with our debt being owned by the very nations that are our key economic and strategic competitors.

The effects are pretty clear by looking at median incomes for male workers in the US which have dropped, when inflation in factored in, by 2.3% from 2003 to 2004. Women workers median incomes have also dropped by 1% in that same period. So despite a good economy, corporate profits going up, etc, and everything being touted as fine and dandy in the economy, the average American worker is falling behind in their his/her/their ability to maintain their standard of living. Eventually cheap credit will run out, well it already has, and folks will no longer be able to sustain their lifestyles as they have been by financing it on cheap interest rates and/or refinancing.

To put in a nutshell if Americans don't make decent wages, which unions historically have been the means to do so, then who is going to buy all this imported stuff? Well corporations live in the here and now and are only interested in making their shareholder value go up now, they don't seem to know how to deal with the long term implications, they just seem to know this is how to stay competative and make more profits in the here and now. We'll all see how that works out in the long run.

I find it interesting that union jobs are touted as being over-paid, but if it wasn't for union wages the median income in the US would be substantially lower. Unions have traditionally the means for non-college educated workers, ie the majority of Americans, to leverage yjrit employers, those who are capable, of paying wages and benefits that are appropriate for the work they do. Go to many a non-union plant and see how workers are paid and treated, and you'll see why unions are good. Now with that said there are plenty of great non-union plants that pay and treat their workers great, and those plants almost always vote no to unions drives. Why? Because they aren't needed. Look at Nissan or other Asian manufacturers for examples.

Unions have good and bad traits. Some may have poor and/or corrupt leadership, some may promise to much to their members to get elected, etc. The good though way outweighs the bad IMO. Thats also why when Americans are polled a majority always state they would like to be in a union,but many though fear losing their jobs if they tried to form one, and Taft-Hartley makes Union drives harder than they should be. So unions have both good and bad triats, just like corporate management, corporations, government, etc.

Stereotypes of unions, corporations, etc, are usually taken way too far. The world is complicated and there are many more factors in play in most events that occur then most people usually associate or think about.

- Thats my say- Not going to argue it- Take it for what it is.

[roads-scholar]

As a former GM salaried employee I feel very sad for the company and the people who are losing their jobs. GM's problems are many and are the result of many bad decisions. I hope the company can turn it around. For all of you folks hoping or not caring about GM's demise remember that thousands of people are employed by suppliers and dealers who will lose their jobs too if GM folds.

[Rural King]

I hope sincerely that GM turns things around and that future cuts aren't needed. Alot of the US economy is based around the auto-industry since its one of our largest and best paying sectors. Lots of jobs not directly provided by auto-makers are tied to the sector. As I said in an earlier post; parts suppliers, tool and die shops, trucking firms, rubber/tire plants, chemical plants, etc will all be negatively effected if they have business that in either directly or indirectly linked to GM production. Thousands more jobs then those directly layed-off are going to be effected directly by decreased demand for their specific economic function/activity in that production chain.

Not to mention all the jobs affected in local retail, dining, cleaning, construction, etc, that will be effected in the communities were the layoffs will occur. Local taxes will also be affected, as those jobs and plants produce alot of tax revenue and local economic activity that will be taken out of local and state coffers.

[monsoon]

There is a culture in America that the unions have perpetuated that whoever we work for "owes" us or even we supposedly have a "right" to huge salaries for our work, health insurance, vacation time, holidays off, sick days, retirement plans, and even months off because we choose to have kids. Those things are all great if the company agrees to them and I don't blame people for taking what is offered, but we have nobody to blame but ourselves when our jobs go overseas because of the ever-increasing costs of doing business in the U.S. THe next time you see a picket line full of people striking because their health insurance was inreased by 5% or because their raises weren't what they "demanded", consider the impact this has on costs, followed by prices, and then followed by fewer jobs in America.

Yet in the countries whose car companies are being thrown up as examples to follow, i.e. Japan & Germany, the culture there supports not only everything you mention, but also national health insurance, high salaries, and for the most part they have a much better standard of living that we have here in the USA. I've been to Japan and have seen how well off they are there. People in the USA like to think we are the best at everything, but it has not been that way in a long time. People here would be absolutely shocked at how far we have fallen behind upon visiting Japan.

[Rural King]

^Same goes for what I've seen in much of Western and Central Europe. Thats not to say that the US is not a wealthy and well-off nation (or that our economy is not doing better) by any means, its just that on a whole the populace and social infrastructure is in many ways better off.

[crabbj]

Back to the main subject, the ION line is going away from the Spring Hill Manufacturing Plant. I have heard for a long time that besides the ongoing sales slump of GM cars, the main reason GM is having to streamline is because of the rising healthcare costs. The rumor about the ION line going away has been around for a couple of years... They already took away third shift production on Line 1, so this announcement is not so much a surprise for those following the plant's changes over the last few years. Let's just hope that after the plant goes through retooling in the next year or so that the $400 million that GM invested in the plant last year will prove successful to the plant's future.

[Rural King]

^ I think the Springhill plant's future is probably pretty secure compared to the plants up north. So I figure the plant getting a new line or a relocated line in only a matter of time. I could be way off in that assessment though, only GM knows for sure what the future holds for any of their plants.

[Lexy]

^ I agree with Rural King on this. I think Spring Hill is fine in the long run.

[Rural King]

Here is a new Tennessean article discussing the hinting by GM officials and hopes of the local plant union that the Springhill plant will play a key role in GM's future structure. The article talks alot about retooling the plant and how retooling in other plants have been carried out, which might mean a temporarily shutdown as they merge Springhill's two lines into one more dynamic and flexible line. Really interesting article.

Tennessean Article:

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...ESS01/511270374

[Lexy]

Here is a new Tennessean article discussing the hinting by GM officials and hopes of the local plant union that the Springhill plant will play a key role in GM's future structure. The article talks alot about retooling the plant and how retooling in other plants have been carried out, which might mean a temporarily shutdown as they merge Springhill's two lines into one more dynamic and flexible line. Really interesting article.

Tennessean Article:

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...ESS01/511270374

This is something that has got to happen. That is a good read.