Gm Damage Control Email

[shocktrp]

"An urgent message to GM owners"

 

Dear ______________,

 

You made the right choice when you put your confidence in General Motors, and we appreciate your past support. I want to assure you that we are making our best vehicles ever, and we have exciting plans for the future. But we need your help now. Simply put, we need you to join us to let Congress know that a bridge loan to help U.S. automakers also helps strengthen the U.S. economy and preserve millions of American jobs.

 

Despite what you may be hearing, we are not asking Congress for a bailout but rather a loan that will be repaid.

 

The U.S. economy is at a crossroads due to the worldwide credit crisis, and all Americans are feeling the effects of the worst economic downturn in 75 years. Despite our successful efforts to restructure, reduce costs and enhance liquidity, U.S. auto sales rely on access to credit, which is all but frozen through traditional channels.

 

The consequences of the domestic auto industry collapsing would far exceed the $25 billion loan needed to bridge the current crisis. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research:

 

• One in 10 American jobs depends on U.S. automakers

• Nearly 3 million jobs are at immediate risk

• U.S. personal income could be reduced by $150 billion

• The tax revenue lost over 3 years would be more than $156 billion

 

Discussions are now underway in Washington, D.C., concerning loans to support U.S. carmakers. I am asking for your support in this vital effort by contacting your state representatives.

 

Please take a few minutes to go to www.gmfactsandfiction.com, where we have made it easy for you to contact your U.S. senators and representatives. Just click on the "I'm a Concerned American" link under the "Mobilize Now" section, and enter your name and ZIP code to send a personalized e-mail stating your support for the U.S. automotive industry.

 

Let me assure you that General Motors has made dramatic improvements over the last 10 years. In fact, we are leading the industry with award-winning vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu, Cadillac CTS, Buick Enclave, Pontiac G8, GMC Acadia, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Saturn AURA and more. We offer 18 models with an EPA estimated 30 MPG highway or better — more than Toyota or Honda. GM has 6 hybrids in market and 3 more by mid-2009. GM has closed the quality gap with the imports, and today we are putting our best quality vehicles on the road.

 

Please share this information with friends and family using the link on the site.

 

Thank you for helping keep our economy viable.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Troy Clarke

[Zembonez]

Haven't seen that one but I did get one asking me to take a few minutes to go to www.gmfactsandfiction.com to see what was really going on. That site is nothing but a smoke blowing spin site generated by GM. Can't blame them considering all of the negative press they are getting. Joe Blow on the street thinks they are done for.

[2000DV4.8]

Awesome sig, Jim.

[Zembonez]

Awesome sig, Jim.

Figured I would remodel mine a little since you guys are on a sig mission. Wouldn't want to get too far behind ya know! If I get time this week, I might try to come up with a new one that really rocks!

[Paul58]

I haven't seen this mailing either but I'm not surprised! Personally I think they should file for bankruptcy, re-organize, dump the UAW and start over from scratch! And in case you haven't picked up on it, I'm adamantly against any bail-out money going to the Big Three!

 

Actually, I think the whole Bail-Out is nothing more than a crutch that is prolonging the inevitable failure of many financial institutions! But don't get me back on that soap box...

[tobias]

GM IS DEAD!!!

[rvsahs]

GM IS DEAD!!!

 

but that sig pic of yours will live on, Daddy....

[ZZ327]

cant keep eyess off daddys video...

[TN_Z71]

Yep...got mine today.

 

 

"It's not a bailout...it's just a loan"

[97SierraGMC]

hopefully something happens already so we dont have to keep wondering what is going to happen

[99silveradoz71]

In the box when I checked email a bit ago.

[shocktrp]

Posted By: shocktrp On: 11-19-2008 @ 21:10:16 Reply | Top | Edit

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,454844,00.html

 

Big Three Auto Execs Flew in Luxury Jets to Seek Multibillion-Dollar Bailout

 

The CEOs of the Big Three automakers reportedly flew private luxury jets to Washington to plead for a $25 billion taxpayer bailout to save their debt-ridden industry — ringing up tens of thousands in charges even as they cried poverty.

 

Recipients of eight-figure bonuses in 2007, the corporate cowboys used their executive perks — which for GM's Rick Wagoner include the run of a $36 million Gulfstream IV jet — to arrive in style as they went begging before Congress.

 

Wagoner, whose flight reportedly cost $20,000 round-trip — about 70 times more than a commercial airline ticket — told Congress he expected about $10-$12 billion from the requested bailout.

 

"This is a slap in the face of taxpayers," Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, told ABC News. "To come to Washington on a corporate jet, and asking for a handout is outrageous."

 

Joined by Robert Nardelli of Chrysler and Alan Mulally of Ford, Wagoner told the Senate that a collapse in Detroit could cost 3 million jobs in just a year and put the hurt on communities across the country.

 

But the prospective bailout is getting held up in the Senate, where lawmakers don't appear keen to save the ailing industry. "Just giving them $25 billion doesn't change anything," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., told FOX News. "It just puts off for six months or so the day of reckoning."

 

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2135.cfm

 

November 19, 2008

Auto Bailout Ignores Excessive Labor Costs

 

Without government intervention, one or more of the Big Three automobile manufacturers--General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler--faces restructuring in bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would not be the end of the Big Three but a new beginning. Coming out of bankruptcy, the automakers would start fresh, free of the contractual obligations that have kept them uncompetitive. The United Auto Workers (UAW) and Detroit automakers want to avoid bankruptcy and are seeking a taxpayer bailout. Such a bailout, however, is not an acceptable alternative to bankruptcy because it would delay the restructuring the Big Three need to become competitive again.

 

UAW workers earn $75 an hour in wages and benefits--almost triple the earnings of the average private sector worker. Detroit autoworkers have substantially more health, retirement, and paid time off benefits than most Americans. These benefits, and a JOBS bank that pays UAW workers nearly full wages to not work, have been a major force driving the Detroit automakers' current fiscal woes. Consequently, Congress should not force all Americans to pay for high wages and benefits for UAW workers.

 

UAW Workers Highly Paid

 

The Big Three automakers are asking taxpayers to bail out some of the most highly paid workers in America. Chart 1 shows the average hourly compensation (wages and benefits) earned by all private sector workers and for UAW represented workers at the Big Three. It also shows the hourly compensation at Japanese plants in the United States.

 

The average private sector worker earned $25.36 an hour in 2006--$17.91 an hour in cash wages and $7.45 an hour in benefits such as pensions, paid time off, and health insurance.[1] Autoworkers at Japanese plants located in the United States earn substantially more than this: between $42 and $48 an hour in wages and benefits, which amounts to over $80,000 a year in total compensation--hardly cheap labor.[2]

 

The typical UAW worker at the Big Three earned between $71 and $76 an hour in 2006. This amount is triple the earnings of the typical worker in the private sector and $25 to $30 an hour more than American workers at Japanese auto plants. The average unionized worker at the Big Three earns over $130,000 a year in wages and benefits.[3]

 

Generous Benefits

 

Most of the Big Three's UAW workers' compensation comes as benefits, not cash. Table 1 breaks down the average hourly labor costs for a UAW worker at Chrysler in 2006. Ford and General Motors have similar compensation profiles.

 

Only 38 percent of the $75.81 an hour that Chrysler's UAW workers earned came as base wages. The rest came as benefits (though some of those benefits, such as overtime premiums and paid vacation days, are paid in cash). Health care costs are the most expensive benefit, accounting for over a quarter of total compensation.

 

Gold-Plated Health Care

 

Health care costs the Big Three so much because the UAW negotiated gold-plated health benefits that include medical, hospital, surgical, and prescription drug coverage. These benefits also cover durable medical equipment (e.g., hearing aids), dental benefits, and even Lasik eye surgery.[4] For all this, GM workers and retirees must pay monthly premiums of $10 for an individual and $21 for families.[5] As a result, UAW workers and retirees have some of the most comprehensive and least expensive health care in America.

 

Competitive Disadvantage

 

These gold-plated health care benefits put the Big Three, and especially GM, at a competitive disadvantage. For example, GM has three times as many retirees as active workers, and health care costs for both groups cost the company $4.6 billion in 2007. The UAW's lavish health benefits added $1,200 to the cost of each vehicle produced in the United States.

 

The Japanese automakers, by contrast, provide standard health benefits to their American employees. Consequently, health care for active workers cost Toyota $215 per vehicle in 2006.[6]

 

Every American buying an auto made in Detroit pays an extra $700 to $1,000 to support health benefits far more generous than most Americans receive.

 

UAW employees also receive the following extraordinary provisions:

 

30-and-Out contracts. UAW employees work under a 30-and-Out contract that allows them to retire with generous pension benefits after 30 years on the job, irrespective of age.

Seven weeks' vacation. A Chrysler worker with 15 years' tenure was entitled to 34.5 paid holidays and vacation days in 2006--seven weeks in paid time off.[7] This is three weeks more paid vacation than the average private sector worker with similar tenure.

Paid not to work. Under UAW contracts, workers whom the automakers let go when plants close are not laid off. Instead, after exhausting regular unemployment payments from the automakers and the government, they are transferred to a JOBS bank where they are paid nearly full wages to not work.

 

A Step in the Right Direction

 

These affluent wages and benefits prevent the Detroit automakers from successfully competing. The Detroit automakers and the UAW have known about this competitive disadvantage for decades, but the UAW resisted making any concessions until 2007--when bankruptcy became an impending reality.

 

Under the 2007 contract, the Big Three and the UAW agreed to the following:

 

To transfer, starting in 2010, retiree health care obligations to a Voluntary Employee Benefits Association (VEBA) run by the UAW. The automakers agreed to collectively pay $60 billion into the VEBA, after which time the UAW would have full responsibility for providing retiree health benefits. This agreement takes the cost of providing health benefits off the Big Three's balance sheets.

To limit time in the JOBS bank to two years.

To require workers in the JOBS bank to accept new employment offers.

To create a two-tiered wage structure. Detroit automakers may now hire entry-level workers for "non-core" positions (those not directly involved in manufacturing automobiles) for roughly $26 an hour in wages and benefits. Although these entry-level workers may transfer to the higher paid vehicle assembly jobs as vacancies occur, they will never receive retiree health benefits.

 

Too Little, Too Late

 

GM estimates the new contract will eventually cut 70 percent of their labor cost gap with the Japanese manufacturers.[8] Average compensation will fall to $54 an hour once the contract takes full effect.It will, however, take years for the Big Three to realize these cost savings. The cost reductions affect only a minority of workers and occur gradually as current workers retire.

 

The vast majority of UAW workers in Detroit today still earn $75 an hour, and the Detroit automakers must still find $60 billion to finance the VEBA. Detroit's labor costs will not fall as much or as rapidly enough as the Big Three need to restore their competitive position and remain solvent.

 

Had the UAW made similar concessions in the early 1990s, it might have prevented the Big Three from falling into such dire economic straits. It did not, however, and the new contract is too little, too late to keep the Detroit automakers solvent.

 

Taxpayers Should Not Bail Out the UAW

 

By seeking a bailout, the UAW, along with the Detroit automakers, are asking taxpayers to help keep UAW earnings at $75 an hour when the typical American takes home a third that much. The Big Three also want Congress to use taxpayers' money to pay billions of dollars into the new health care VEBA, thereby funding health care benefits for UAW retirees that are far more generous than those provided by an already under-funded Medicare system.

 

UAW workers understandably want to preserve the standard of living to which they have become accustomed, but that standard is not sustainable in a competitive economy. Congress should not tax all Americans in order to maintain UAW workers' affluent lifestyles.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,454966,00.html

 

Car Trouble

 

We've told you the CEOs of the Big Three automakers came to Washington to plead for a federal bailout — but they didn't fly commercial.

 

ABC News online reports General Motors' Rick Wagoner, Alan Mulally of Ford and Chrysler's Robert Nardelli all flew to Washington aboard multi-million dollar corporate jets at around $20,000 per roundtrip. Wagoner flew aboard one of the eight luxury liners in GM's fleet that continues to ferry executives around the world despite the company's dire financial situation.

 

In comparison, commercial airline tickets from Detroit to Washington go for under $300 for coach and around $830 for first class.

[BlackSilver]

I haven't really decided where I stand on this one yet, but it was interesting that Congress quickly saved the jobs of a bunch of bankers (to the tune of $700B) but declined to spend a fraction of that much to save the jobs of automotive workers. (And yes, I know, some of them could stand a pay cut.)

[shocktrp]

I haven't really decided where I stand on this one yet, but it was interesting that Congress quickly saved the jobs of a bunch of bankers (to the tune of $700B) but declined to spend a fraction of that much to save the jobs of automotive workers. (And yes, I know, some of them could stand a pay cut.)

 

The bankers and AIG executives already set a rather embarassing example for Congress - it looks like they're going to be a little more careful this time around.

 

Too bad the executives at the Big 3 don't understand that you can't fly to DC on a corporate jet and then cry poverty and beg for money.

 

The only good thing to come from a bailout is that the $25B will be money that the bankers won't get their hands on.

 

A business that loses money is not a business - it is a hobby. The Big 3 must be forced into making a profit. If the Unions have to suffer, so be it - they have gone way too far and they need to be brought back in line with the rest of the economy. If they do not turn a profit by the end of the 2009 model year then they should lose all tax incentives and writeoffs. The IRS should then move to seize and sell off everything they can - starting with the corporate jets. (Maybe a Warren Buffet or a Bill Gates will step in, but it, and make it profitable when the IRS decides to sell the companies themselves.)

[Paul58]

The Big 3 showing up for their bail-out in corporate jets is like me parking my 09 BMW in front of the soup kitchen and trying to get a free meal! Personally I'm glad they sent them packing! A bankruptcy may be just the humbling experience they need!