akirby

Without Mulally the board would still hold the pursestrings, there would be no platform sharing between NA, Europe and Australia and Ford would still be operating like 3 different companies (FoNA, FoA, FoE). Those changes are huge and key to Ford's future prosperity.

They don't get health care under STEP and ESTEP.

The buyouts were a big first step - Ford has no future financial burden for them, pension or healthcare. I don't want to see retirees impacted either but it may be unavoidable. The rest has to come from current employees with a combination of lower benefits, higher co-pays and monthly premiums. Just like the rest of America has been doing for the last several years. It's not Ford's fault that health care costs rose so fast.

A few years? Try 20 or 30 years. And I've never heard anything about pensions being a big problem - those are normally funded up front. It's the rising health care costs that have risen much faster than inflation that's causing problems. The more retirees you have the more you feel the impact of rising health care costs.

I didn't say who started it or why. It was done at a time when the only competition for Detroit was Detroit, not imports. Market share and profits were sky high. Market share is way down, there is no profit and the competition doesn't have all that overhead. It's no longer viable. To the contrary - I love Ford. I've owned 2 rangers, 2 explorers, 1 expedition, 1 Lincoln LS, 1 Lincoln Aviator and a Ford Fusion. I want Ford to be able to compete with Toyota and Honda and they can't do that by paying thousands of people not to work and not controlling rising health care costs.

I know, but it's fun seeing what idiotic excuses and explanations they can come up with.

Go read this http://www.rovianconspiracy.com/2006/03/st...nsequences.html And then explain to me how GM and Ford don't pay for GEN workers. Where does the money come from?

Could not be built on a modified mustang platform as the show cars were. In other words, if Mulally said build it now they couldn't. The show cars were all smoke and mirrors. It will have to wait for a RWD D3 platform (if that even exists) or more likely the new Huntsman platform.

I'm sure this will be mentioned in teasers all day for the local news and reported in detail. NOT! But I'd love to be wrong for a change.

Oh - so it keeps you off the plant's overhead. Ok, I get that. But it's still coming out of Ford's pocket. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens with the new contract, huh?

How does paying people not to work reduce overhead costs? It INCREASES overhead costs. Significantly in some cases. Did you read the quote I posted about how much GEN cost GM last year? Doesn't matter which part of the books they're on - the money still goes out the door. How did GEN prevent the Fusion from being made in Mexico? I believe GEN did prevent the Atlanta plant from closing until they decided to do buyouts. So you see GEN as a tax that penalizes companies that close plants or reduces capacity? How is that different from a higher gas tax that you so vehemently opposed that was designed to be a penalty for consumers who buy vehicles with poor fuel mileage? GEN will no longer prevent Ford from moving production outside the U.S. They'll simply move production for new vehicles and reduce the GEN workers through attrition (retirement) and buyouts. It will have precisely the opposite effect from what you are proposing. It's an 80's concept that no longer works and it needs to be eliminated or highly modified. There is no way you can possibly defend it.

GEN is only beneficial to the company if it allows trained employees to be reused instead of having to hire untrained people and only if the reuse happens within a reasonable amount of time - a few months to a year maybe. After that the cost of carrying someone on the payroll that isn't producing product becomes too great. All major companies do this to some extent provided they aren't downsizing. And if the company is permanently downsizing then there is absolutely no benefit at all to the company. Look at what happened to GM in California 20 years ago. They closed the only plant in that area so there was nowhere for the workers to transfer. The workers there remained on GEN for as long as 15 years. 15 years of paying them not to do any work whatsoever. How about a 6 month limit? Either find another job within the company or retire or get some type of severance package. Maybe even up to 1 year.

Where did I say the $2K-$3K cost difference was due strictly to labor cost? I didn't, but that's a big part of it as you just admitted. Sharing platforms globally will also reduce cost. It all has to be looked at. The difference with Toyota is that Toyota voluntarily agreed to those wages and benefits without having the employees threatening to strike or going through some convoluted bargaining process. And I think you need to re-read those comments. They aren't complaining about the Toyota workers making more than they do. They're complaining about the Toyota workers complaining about having to pay more for health insurance when they're still getting a better deal than most other workers in the area. In other words - be grateful for what you have.

Wrong. Ford has cut back production to meet demand in a lot of cases (Fusion, e.g.). There is some increased demand but it's more about managing production levels and not overproducing like they've done in the past. And why do you keep focusing on wages being cut? I said they need to cut compensation - that's more than just wages. It includes jobs bank, health care and other benefits that cost the company money. Frankly I think they should just freeze wages, not cut them.

Profit? You mean Ford wants to make a profit on every car it sells? Shocking! Alert the media! Having a $2K-$3K cost advantage over your direct competitors is a huge advantage for the imports. If your product is selling well then you get extra profits that can be used to expand production or develop new products, etc. If your product isn't selling as well as you'd like then you'd be able to lower the price to the point where you can still make a profit but your competitors can't. Either way it impacts Ford negatively.

The dealers don't have an inventory problem. Dealer inventory is so low right now that Ford decided NOT to have a labor day sale for the first time in recent history. There is no way that a strike is good for either side.

Collective bargaining is fine. Threatening to strike just because your employer doesn't give you what you want is extortion. That's about as simple and clear cut as you can get.

And that was one of the questions Mullaly is asking, especially after finding out the MKR and Interceptor from last January couldn't be built. I bet you won't see any of those concept only vehicles next year.

I don't need to stick together with anybody. If I don't like my job I'll go get another one with a different company making the same if not more money with the same benefits. It's not that hard to do out in the real world and millions of people do it every year. That's the beauty of the free job market. You're just jealous because there's no place you can go where you can make anywhere close to what you make in your UAW job. What pisses me off is that it's keeping Ford from being able to compete head to head with Toyota and the rest of the imports. It's like they're running a 100 yard dash with a bowling ball chained to one foot.

They do now. extort One entry found for extort. Main Entry: ex·tort Pronunciation: ik-'stort Function: transitive verb Etymology: Latin extortus, past participle of extorquEre to wrench out, extort, from ex- + torquEre to twist -- more at TORTURE : to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power

Maybe you should get your facts straight. http://www.rovianconspiracy.com/2006/03/st...nsequences.html

It doesn't mean they'll give anyone a loan, either. But they don't have tiered rates. It's Georgia Telco Credit Union in Atlanta. www.gatelco.org .

Go to fordvehicles.com and you can see today's incentives. What incentives are available when you actually take delivery is anybody's guess.

The NHL teams will do what any team does when it can't afford to pay it's salaries - it will trade the players to other teams that are willing to pay them or it will simply wait until their contracts are up and not resign them. They may or may not be able to get as much money with another team. I guess it boils down to this: you think that an employer owes it's workers a certain level of pay and benefits based on the product they produce or how much revenue the company brings in or what you think the job is worth. I think the employer has the right to decide what they're willing to compensate for a particular job and the free market will determine what a particular job is worth. What you don't realize is that 99% of private sector jobs have worked exactly this way for decades. That's the way it works in the real world. If you don't like your job then go find another one. Nobody is forcing you to keep the one you have. How much a CEO makes has no bearing on how much my job is worth - totally different skill sets.

Nope - no credit rating requirement. All credit union members get the same rate. OTOH I'm sure the Ford rates are not available to those with questionable credit.