Breaking: UAW Unhappy with Auto Loan Terms; Asking for Changes

This is a good read ,Brian. The UAW is out of sink with reality. I think it's time for them to start pondering "Relocation",or learning how to subsidize their income with a part-time job! This isn't just an isolated situation in the states anymore. During the past twenty-five years, millions of family have experienced this type of devastation, regarding similar industrial(job losses)downsizing (drastic circumstances, call for drastic measures). We all have to make these painful decisions during one's lifetime. It's American as "Apple Pie",...?

It had enough support to pass, but not enough to end a filibuster. Thankfully the Rebupblicans can still filibuster to prevent these ridiculous things from passing. Too bad we have a communist president in Bush who went ahead and bailed them out anyway.

Seems to me to be a slimy tactic to get President Bush to come through with the loans and then allows the union's endorsed candidate; Presdient Elect Obama to rewrite the rules to what the union wants them to say. The Union has to give concessions or these loans are only a temporary bridge to bankrupcy. The union never thinks they need to come to the table, it always has to be the company; no wonder the big three are in so much financial trouble. You can't afford, what you can't afford!

I wondered how fast the UAW would whine about this! I guess we found out the new definition of the fastest distance between two points;(it is not a straight line!!) the time the UAW gets money; till the time it complains and gripes for more! I used to think the shortest distance between two points was the time it took a light to turn green in New York City till the time it took someone to start honking their horns --- this totally smokes that time frame! TELL GM to file Chapter 11 and be done with them! UAW needs to be dissolved. WE save their hind ends; and they want still MORE -- Let's pull the loans back and let the PRIVATE enterprises save them. IT IS NOT OUR DUTY TO SAVE THEM! How fast can we say "da ungrates"! If my kids tried this; I would take it ALL away -- what ever it was we agreed to and let them experience what "going without" would be like. I feel like we just gave the guy on the street corner a $10 bill so he could get some food and we felt sorry for him and he says to us "I want $50 or nothing!; give me more!!". UAW -- ENOUGH -- SORT THE ISSUE OUT YOURSELF WITHOUT OUR TAX PAYER MONEY!!! This is after all YOUR problem -- Not ours!! YOU HAVE MADE YOUR POOR PLANNING OUR EMERGENCY!! Why should we REALLY bother with you anymore!!!

The UAW will destroy America with their unrealistic demands. Remember the coal miners stike in England? That strike lasted a year and was over unrealistic demands. The coal industry has never been the same. Gettelfinger should face the reality of the times we live in and give some concessions. We are all hurting but are willing to compromise for the good of the country/company.

It makes me sick that these companies, bad business practices and all, are groveling on their hands and knees for me and all like me to give them handout's. It is said by those doing the groveling that one out of ten jobs is related to the automobile but they like Detroit have been in a recession for over thirty years. I don't believe the one in ten thing unless you are counting Toyota, Nissian etc. They count themselves as more important than the rest of us. I say let them go bust and get that crap out of the way. I buy American Ford cars but will never buy a GM and would never buy a Chrysler. I just spoke with an old friend abd a GM retiree and he didn't know that GM was insolvent to the tune of sixty-two billion. That's odd also.

This situation has a 40 year old precedent in Akron,Ohio.The tire companies wanted to update their world war one plants to be competitive with foreign and domestic competition,and the United Rubber Workers union,headed by Peter Bomarito,refused to make the concessions to allow the restructuring.The result was Akron as a ghost town,as eventually all the plants either relocated,sold or closed.That was the end of Akron as "The Rubber Capital of the World".

>“All stakeholders – management, directors, bondholders, suppliers, dealers, workers – will have to participate in shared sacrifices to help the industry move forward,” he said, noting that UAW members have already made substantial sacrifices to help make the domestic auto companies more competitive.< I must of missed that, when did they make any sacrifices? What were these sacrifices?

The wage should not be the issue. It is the on-going protection for the bad workers. Never ending protection for bad work, missing time, stealing, sleeping on the job, drinking on the job. All protected. Just never understood why the overwelming amount of very good workers allowed the union to protect the losers. That is the stuff that needs correcting. Not the wage. Fred

The union is doing what technically it should do, which is get the best for its people. However I am not to sure that its the best thing to do in this economy. Im kinda with John L.

Chapter 11 is the only way these unions will deal with the realities of the situation. It'll never happen becuase Obama owes the presidency to them, their "get out the voter fraud efforts" and the union dues money they donated to his campaign.

I'm a UAW member. The leadership has a choice, accept the offer or finf another job.

Any American taxpayer who buys a car from the "big 3" from here forward is twice a fool: once on the bailouts (present and future), and once on quality and reliability (they both stink). Boycott Detroit until we get our money back!

Message to the Autos: your customers are bailing you out, don't disrespect. Message to the government: you are stealing from your bosses, better think twice about twice and put down the wallet.

What ever happended to the point at which when no one bought a product they let a company die.I am from South Carolina, I dispise the whole idea of a labor union. By the way, does anyone remember when the US Govt let the entire Southern Textile industry collapse and put almost 800,000 workers on the bread lines. We managed then. I am against Govt control of free market economy. If I make a product that no one wants.....guess what I go out of business....

Congratulations, Big 3 and UAW! You have just conned the taxpayers out of $17.4 billion dollars in order to maintain your greedy lifestyles. It's perfectly fine for 3 million jobs to be lost in other sectors of the economy, as long as you sacred cows get to keep meandering your way through the streets. Up to this point I have owned only American cars, but my next vehicle will be a Toyota.

Maybe some of the UAW leadership ought to come down and visit some of us who work at a dealership. The downturn for us started in 2006 and we've been in a constant restructuring mode to try to size to the market and the margins available. For instance, we have gone from 102 employees to 82 -- with reduced hours for hourly folks. Cut vacation benefits to one fully paid week per year. Frozen wage increases since 2006. Consolidated jobs with no increase in pay for additional responsibilities. Eliminated contributions to employee sponsored charities and events. Increased the employees' required contribution to their health plans. Instituted more frequent performance reviews to maintain acceptable levels performance on such items as customer satisfaction scores, sales, etc. in light of bad economy creating bad attitudes (short for our problems are not due to our customers). Trimmed Less A/C and heat in some areas of the building to cut on utility expenses. And these are just cuts made on personnel and don't even include those actions on assets such as inventories, plant and facilities, and other expenses such as advertizing. You want to know what "sacrifices" these UAW cats have made? How about dropping a demand for "threshold to threshold" pay where they would be paid from the moment they walked out of their houses to go to work and until they walked back in when they go home from work. Dropping demands is their sacrifice.

A bailout of the Big 3 is SOCIALIST. Why should I, and everyone else who make far less than $70 per hour, which is the compensation paid by the Big 3, have to pay for the salaries of union members who make far more than I do? If the Big 3 made cars that people wanted the Big 3 would not be in trouble! Why should I have to pay for executive bonuses and private jets when they made wrong decision after wrong decision? Today it is too late to say SORRY – they had decades to make things right! They have been building garbage for years and shoving it down the throats of the American consumer. I personally know of the manure the Big 3 produces. A few years ago I bought a new ford that broke down before 10,000 miles, two new transmissions had to be put in it, which cost me out of pocket money, as ford did not want to back their warrantee! One day I was traveling south on a highway when the brakes failed and I was in a horrible accident, yes failed with less than 10,000 miles and not a year. The ford zone representative told me to STICK it, they didn’t warrantee brakes on the cars/junk they build and that if I sued ford I would get as much money as the people who sued for the pinto years ago. Screw you ford, GM and Chrysler. Since than I bought a new Toyota, it now 2 years old and I put on 38,900 miles and not one problem -- unlike the garbage GM, ford, and chrysler make. Have you died in a ford lately? By the way how can you drive a ford when they keep breaking down?

I oppose bailing out the BIG 3 for the following reasons. Most of their electronics are foreign made.... A good portion of the steel they use is NOT made in the US. The Big 3 is shipping many of the engineering jobs used to design the vehicles to India and China. Almost 100% of all Robotics used by the Big-3 are Foreign made. Most of the software used to design the cars are made by foreign programmers not Americans!!! The stockholders of GM and Ford encompass all other the developed nations of the world. If we bail out GM, Ford, and Chrysler we are sending as much if not more of our monies to subcontractors and jobs throughout the world. It does not stay here. When GM finally says they have a competitive hybrid ready to sell.... it may be assembled in Mexico with parts from who knows where. So far NOT A WORD ABOUT NECESSARY RESTRUCTURING to make them globally competitive, and no word about opening up the union contracts. Since Ford, GM, and Chrysler could care less about me (and the American consumer) I could care less about them.

Why won't the government give my poor little business some of that $700 billion? Oh yeah, I don't make cars with computer aided robots. Tough job you guys have. Try following me around for a day. YOU COULD NOT HANDLE IT!!!!

How in the world did management and the shareholders allow the UAW to get so powerful? How is it possible that management, guys making millions, couldn't figure it out that they were going broke? GM owes nearly $50 billion! Who were/are the idiots making loans to this company or buying their corporate paper? Why is it that when you buy Honda, Toyota or BMW your car holds a decent resale value? Buy a Jeep for $25k and in one year its worth $10k? These companies pay too much to people that are not very sharp. The good news is that on March 31st its chapter 11 baby, because these car companies won't get it until they officially take BK.

I guess we have to accept this as taxpayers. The only way we will be able to tell how well this works is when the Q1 reports come out and the foreign automakers do FAR better than the Big Three. People - The ONLY way to send a message to Congress, the Big Three, and especially the UAW is to BUY FOREIGN. Take a lesson from those &%#&^ hippies and BOYCOTT the UAW automakers!!

I started to make a comment, however I cannot improve on what has already been said. I think Fox news should bundle up all these comments and send to the UAW, management of GM, Ford, and Chrysler, and congress and the President and President elect and say this is what a lot of the country think of your taxpayer giveaways and your socialist moves. We are I think still a country based on competition and capitalism and I would like to keep it that way.

We need to change tactics here. We are complaining about the UAW -- Granted they are much to blame; but CONGRESS and our GOVERNMENT APPROVED the money!! Hope you people don't continue to have short term memories and remember this sour taste in your mouth that this and all the other bailouts have caused; especially when you see next years deficit that you are responsible to pay through your TAXES! Mid term elections are now less than 2 years away! Let our representatives learn the lesson of betrayal of our trust and VOTE the THUGS OUT!!

The UAW would be best served by dumping this intellecutally challenged leader, Gettelfinger, who sounds like he works in a wrecking yard rather than a leader of a group. He is an idiot. Worse yet, Gettelfinger read all the posts on any topic involving this bailout or the UAW, no one supports your idiotic positions. Take a large dose of reality you have drained too much blood out of the big three, time to give some of their life blood back so they can survive.