The difference between blue collar workers and white collar workers is well-known and well-accepted. Blue collar work involves manual labour, likely paid hourly wages, and is related to building things (including on an assembly line) or maintaining things. White collar work is accepted to be salaried, office positions (i.e. not a labour position on the assembly line), and includes administrative workers, managerial workers and professional workers.

While it is ideal to keep both assembly line workers, and office and professional workers, if pressure to keep costs down prevents a large automaker from being able to afford to pay both blue collar and white collar workers in the same location, it is better to keep the white collar workers, especially the professionals.

This is because professionals -- including engineers, accountants, teachers and professors, physicians and surgeons, and lawyers -- are highly-paid knowledge workers. Knowledge workers are value-added workers: The value of the work they produce is greater than the value of the resources that are consumed. Value generation can grow an economy.

If an economy were to lose blue collar workers to low-wage areas, and then lose white collar workers (some white collar workers, the managers and administrators, will follow the blue collar workers) due to indifference, the only jobs that are left are low-waged, low-skilled pink collar -- service industry -- workers. Pink collar work is not enough to grow an economy.

That said, if an organisation believes that it must reduce its workforce to remain viable, buyouts -- including early retirement -- are an accepted form of voluntary reduction; buyouts are not bribes. Buyouts can be seen as investments by spending money now to avoid trouble and spending (even more) money in the future. What organisation would not want to reduce workforce voluntarily than by having to pick and choose who stays and who goes?

 

I agree that slackers and goof-offs should be dealt with (and, on an assembly line, they can compromise the build-quality of a vehicle). But, even if they are let go, someone needs to take their place.....you can't operate in a vacuum. Even if robots take over some of the work, the robots still have to be monitored to make sure they aren't screwing up.

 

 

Sometimes I wonder, when was the last time most of us have toured a factory? I can think of one in particular, which I won't dime out, who makes products stamped "Made in USA."

The quality is atrocious, and this may come as a surprise, but the workforce is 100% legal immigrants. I am not sure what it is that everyone wants, but imho, this is a smokescreen and not what many of us have in mind, as far as creating factory jobs. But such American cos. are "veiled" if you will, publicly traded, highly profitable with many fed contracts, and maintain first of all, "Made in USA," and secondly, low paying jobs which many US Citizens do not want.

 

While I agree that one cannot directly compare the auto industry of a century ago to that of today, nevertheless, there are still certain parallels and similarities. One comparison, that Henry Ford learned back then (and, unfortunately some companies have to re-learn today) is that, in most cases, consumers (including a company's own employees) cannot buy new vehicles without a decently-paying job and income. So, Ford, without any union pressure (he opposed unionization for decades) willingly doubled the average salary of his assembly-line employees to what was then the highest in the industry (he was also very strict about how they morally led their personal lives, but that is another subject, one that goes beyond the purposes of this discussion). His competitors laughed at him, and told him he would soon be out of business. But there were long lines of people at Ford's personnel-center waiting to apply for jobs...he was attracting a lot of talented people. And his company, contrary to the dire predictions of his competitors, went on to become the most successful auto company up to that time....and it still exists today.

 

 

 

First of all, IF they are legal immigrants, have not stolen or evaded their way into the country, have kept out of trouble, and have done their paperwork correctly, then, in my book, they are legitimate Americans, and are entitled to a job as much as anyone else. Second, the idea that they are goof-offs, slackers, or do substandard work is usually nonsense.....most of the ones I've seen work quite hard for not a whole lot of money. I've had a number of things in my house repaired or replaced from their labor (our condo association also uses companies that hire them)......and have been generally satisfied.

 

They aren't laying off 18k workers. They are offering buyouts to 18k workers, with an expected take rate around 10-15%. I suspect they'll start here then, if the take rate is low or more is needed, they will then turn to involuntary layoffs. But this is the least painful way to start the process.

My employer did this last year. As an employee in a historically cyclical industry, I always find this method to be far better than involuntary layoffs. They offered it to me but I did not take it. Many younger folks did and used it to make various life changes (moving, schooling, etc.) but by far and large, it was taken by those who were nearing retirement. The offer here was something like 2 weeks of pay for every year of service. Those guys with more than 26 years of service and planning to retire in the next year or two could take the buy out, get paid for a full year, then start their retirement. Not a bad situation. And every one who took it saved one other employee from an involuntary layoff.

I don't see the issue here.

 

If desired, a new car today, in the American market (Versa, Rio, Fiesta, Spark, Mirage, etc...), can be had for 15K or less, though, obviously, by today's standards, it won't be much more than bare, basic transportation. I did a review on a new Mirage, a few years ago, that listed for less than 13K, just to see what today's skin-flint transportation is like. It had a Mickey-Mouse three cylinder engine, old-fashioned wind-up windows, you locked your own doors and hand-adjusted your own mirrors, you rowed your own gears with a 5-speed manual transmission, and, if (?) I remember correctly, there was no air conditioning.

 

You don't understand what I said. Please read what I said. I never said that GM would replace the 18,000 white collar workers with 18,000 blue collar workers. You cannot directly replace lost white collar workers with blue collar workers.

 

 

 

That's tough for those employees with the buyouts. Curious if their local politicians or Trump will address it.

 

I don't need to come up with a "better" solution. It's a free market. If you don't like companies shipping jobs off shore, don't buy their products.

There has already been a tax act passed reducing the corporate tax rate to encourage companies to bring those jobs back--great. But to tax companies because they reduce their work force?