Jesda
02-10-2006, 10:52 AM
This is an opinion piece I just handed in for the school paper. I figured I'd share. The story about the Cavalier door falling off happened, but I changed the details (I didnt actually call and laugh, but I did stay in the house and watch from inside):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you driven a Ford lately? Me neither.
Jesda Gulati, Staff Writer
I want to meet the engineers in Detroit who ‘blessed’ us with the Ford Pinto, Chevy Celebrity, and Dodge Aries, so I can shake them violently and ask, “What the hell were you thinking?”
A couple years ago a friend of mine, who at the time owned a 1988 Chevy Cavalier, came over to visit. As he drove away, I heard a loud clunk, looked out the window, and saw his passenger door sitting in the street. The darn thing had fallen off. A good friend would typically run outside and offer assistance, but it was brutally cold, so I stayed indoors and called his cell phone to laugh at him. He conveyed to me a string of words that are unsuitable for publication, but he eventually reattached his door and drove home.
Unfortunately, the crummy products of the US auto industry are no laughing matter, as one quarter of our national economy is directly or indirectly tied to it. In January, Ford laid off 30,000 employees. General Motors lost billions last quarter. Chrysler was lost to Daimler-Benz in a fraudulent merger years ago. Meanwhile, management at Ford and GM are running in circles like beheaded chickens.
A brief history lesson…
The early 80s marked the end of the Carter-era fuel crunch. Nissan, Honda, and Toyota took advantage of the situation and infiltrated the US market with poorly made but fuel-efficient vehicles.
Hideous contraptions like the Datsun B210, offered in a disgusting shade of orange I remember as “upchuck tangerine”, were known to rust in showrooms. This was acceptable to Americans of the late 70s and early 80s, because rising fuel costs forced them to give up their full-size Buicks and settle for gas-sipping garbage heaps.
This situation forced the Big Three (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) to fend off foreign competition by throwing together small, economical cars in a short period of time. Sloppy engineering predictably resulted in junk. The Chevy Vega comes to mind.
Now, the 80s are long over, but a tarnished reputation remains. Even as Buick, Lincoln, and Cadillac top J.D. Power rankings for long-term dependability and customer satisfaction, sales are rapidly declining as labor costs rise dramatically.
Labor unions bear much responsibility for rising costs. When the United Auto Workers went on strike in July 1998, it cost GM a billion dollars a day. Management finally gave in to the UAW’s demands, partly because profits were high at the time, but mostly because they had no choice. Now, just a few years later, GM is bleeding and the unions are refusing to give up their raises and benefits.
Because of similar union concessions made decades earlier, GM operates a Job Bank. One thousand people show up for eight hours a day and do absolutely nothing while earning $26 an hour. This is made possible because of UAW contracts: when a factory closes, no one actually loses their job. They instead get tossed into the Job Bank, getting paid to show up, eat doughnuts, and read the newspaper.
In theory, these people could go back to work when production increases, but General Motors’ market share has declined from 50% in the 1960s ago to a pathetic 25% in 2004. Production will not be increasing anytime soon, perhaps ever, which means that these people will never have to work again.
GM, as a result of being unable to let anyone go, continues to build cars over capacity, and when inventories are large, the company is forced to offer sales incentives and massive discounts. This causes resale value to steeply decline, which means consumers have to incur higher long term costs of ownership, making imported cars more attractive.
As much as I appreciate and prefer a fair number of American cars, I refuse to contribute to the wealth of greedy thugs like Ron Gettelfinger, president of the UAW. The union will have to give up its perks or GM will disappear, sending the US economy into a downward spiral.
It’s us or them, and they have to lose if the rest of us are going to win.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you driven a Ford lately? Me neither.
Jesda Gulati, Staff Writer
I want to meet the engineers in Detroit who ‘blessed’ us with the Ford Pinto, Chevy Celebrity, and Dodge Aries, so I can shake them violently and ask, “What the hell were you thinking?”
A couple years ago a friend of mine, who at the time owned a 1988 Chevy Cavalier, came over to visit. As he drove away, I heard a loud clunk, looked out the window, and saw his passenger door sitting in the street. The darn thing had fallen off. A good friend would typically run outside and offer assistance, but it was brutally cold, so I stayed indoors and called his cell phone to laugh at him. He conveyed to me a string of words that are unsuitable for publication, but he eventually reattached his door and drove home.
Unfortunately, the crummy products of the US auto industry are no laughing matter, as one quarter of our national economy is directly or indirectly tied to it. In January, Ford laid off 30,000 employees. General Motors lost billions last quarter. Chrysler was lost to Daimler-Benz in a fraudulent merger years ago. Meanwhile, management at Ford and GM are running in circles like beheaded chickens.
A brief history lesson…
The early 80s marked the end of the Carter-era fuel crunch. Nissan, Honda, and Toyota took advantage of the situation and infiltrated the US market with poorly made but fuel-efficient vehicles.
Hideous contraptions like the Datsun B210, offered in a disgusting shade of orange I remember as “upchuck tangerine”, were known to rust in showrooms. This was acceptable to Americans of the late 70s and early 80s, because rising fuel costs forced them to give up their full-size Buicks and settle for gas-sipping garbage heaps.
This situation forced the Big Three (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) to fend off foreign competition by throwing together small, economical cars in a short period of time. Sloppy engineering predictably resulted in junk. The Chevy Vega comes to mind.
Now, the 80s are long over, but a tarnished reputation remains. Even as Buick, Lincoln, and Cadillac top J.D. Power rankings for long-term dependability and customer satisfaction, sales are rapidly declining as labor costs rise dramatically.
Labor unions bear much responsibility for rising costs. When the United Auto Workers went on strike in July 1998, it cost GM a billion dollars a day. Management finally gave in to the UAW’s demands, partly because profits were high at the time, but mostly because they had no choice. Now, just a few years later, GM is bleeding and the unions are refusing to give up their raises and benefits.
Because of similar union concessions made decades earlier, GM operates a Job Bank. One thousand people show up for eight hours a day and do absolutely nothing while earning $26 an hour. This is made possible because of UAW contracts: when a factory closes, no one actually loses their job. They instead get tossed into the Job Bank, getting paid to show up, eat doughnuts, and read the newspaper.
In theory, these people could go back to work when production increases, but General Motors’ market share has declined from 50% in the 1960s ago to a pathetic 25% in 2004. Production will not be increasing anytime soon, perhaps ever, which means that these people will never have to work again.
GM, as a result of being unable to let anyone go, continues to build cars over capacity, and when inventories are large, the company is forced to offer sales incentives and massive discounts. This causes resale value to steeply decline, which means consumers have to incur higher long term costs of ownership, making imported cars more attractive.
As much as I appreciate and prefer a fair number of American cars, I refuse to contribute to the wealth of greedy thugs like Ron Gettelfinger, president of the UAW. The union will have to give up its perks or GM will disappear, sending the US economy into a downward spiral.
It’s us or them, and they have to lose if the rest of us are going to win.