Originally Posted by 1SICKLEX

I've worked on both sides. I've been a Union Representative and eventually moved into management (not auto related). My take on things.
Union
-You had the Union leaders who abides by the rules and wanted to work with the company.
-You had the VERY vocal Union leaders who HATED the company for whatever reason and looked for ANY reason to make a damn mess of things. These people were usually more influential.
MGT
-You had management that followed the Union rules and rules in general b/c they were just good managers.
-You had managers SCARED to manage b/c of the Union
-You had managers who would purposely seem to **** the Union off and would usually lose the battle.
Workers
-You had workers who saw NO USE for the union and were good workers.
-You had workers who donated to the Union but were mostly inactive
-You had a few workers who ran to the union for everything and depended

Overall IMO and working on both sides, I saw the Union hurting the company with productivity and financially. There were some cases where the company was wrong or maybe didn't follow exact rules but I can say it was RARE to see someone who the company tried to terminate wrongly.

The cases I HATED was where someone CLEARLY was a **** poor worker and/or was always below average and needed to be let go but b/c a rule was followed or a "T" was not crossed, they KEPT THEIR JOB. It was ridiculous (and one of the reasons I document every damn thing to this day lol).

To ME it wasn't about a Union/Non Union. It was about managers and non managers that wanted to work and perform. B/c BOTH SIDES had them and they suck ALL COMPANIES dry.

I think its CLEAR that the import companies recognize this and simply HIRE better people and have better systems in place to keep people motivated and reward good workers.

It starts WITH THE TOP DOWN. Not sure why GM/Ford/Chrysler wants to make it seem its supposed to start the other way around. **** poor management will just waste a company away AND a **** poor union that tries to keep sorry *** people employed also wates the company away.

Both sides are to blame.

Originally Posted by 1SICKLEX

This is a GREAT point. GM and Toyota basically both sold I think 9.3 million vehicles.
Toyota made 17 billion or so
GM LOST 9 billion or so

WTF???Its NOT sales.

Originally Posted by rdgdawg

Just one line item:
Insurance cost factored to bottom line per auto built
(figures are from a spreadsheet I saw about 1 year ago)
USA $1750
Japan $350
Canada $150

Bet we can find some more....

Originally Posted by JLSC4

I believe that $1750 also includes pension.

Some people also may not be aware that in some of these countries, they have universal/socialist/nationalist health care systems and therefore don't have to provide worker insurance.

That said, we DO NOT want nationalized health care in the US! Trust me. But that's a different debate.