What Will The American Auto Industry Do Now?
December 12, 2008 by Cameron Wong
With Congress rejecting a $14 billion dollar bailout for US automakers, where does that leave Detroits Big Three? Unfortunately the decision came down to partisanship. Republicans voted against it, most Demorcrats wanted it. The auto industry will suffer deeply, and so will American jobs.
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and KEN THOMAS of the Associated Press wrote,
WASHINGTON – A bailout-weary Congress killed a $14 billion package to aid struggling U.S. automakers Thursday night after a partisan dispute over union wage cuts derailed a last-ditch effort to revive the emergency aid before year’s end.
Republicans, breaking sharply with President George W. Bush as his term draws to a close, refused to back federal aid for Detroit’s beleaguered Big Three without a guarantee that the United Auto Workers would agree by the end of next year to wage cuts to bring their pay into line with U.S. plants of Japanese carmakers. The UAW refused to do so before its current contract with the automakers expires in 2011.
If this union decision leads to the demise of the US auto industry, wouldn’t they be cutting their own throats?
See the full AP article.
The greed of the unions and the American auto worker played a big part in the current state of the American auto industry. I have no idea how they could have been so blind to the fact that if your employees are paid too much, then it is next to impossible to be competitive in today’s market.
As an insider looking in…it looks like the Unions are so stubborn on squeezing out every dollar, and the auto makers are so stubborn in what and how they build cars, it’s led to this debacle. It’s amazing how short sited people in power can be.