Chrysler To Build Jeeps in China

[jobs1stb4polarbear]

Barack Obama sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build American Jeeps in China...WTF!!

Well, there goes UAW jobs....

Now here's what the Reuters reported earlier this week:
uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/17/uk-fiat-marchionne-china-idUKBRE90G0O620130117

.....Fiat (FIA.MI) and its U.S. unit Chrysler expect to roll out at least 100,000 Jeeps in China when production starts in 2014 as they seek to catch up with rivals in the world's biggest car market. ...

...."We expect production of around 100,000 Jeeps per year which is expandable to 200,000," [Chrysler CEO Sergio] Marchionne, who is also CEO of Chrysler, said on the sidelines of a conference, adding production could start in 18 months.

.....Under Chrysler's bailout agreement Fiat is able to exercise call options to purchase portions of the 41.5 percent stake held by the VEBA healthcare trust.

.....However, the two have been locked in a courtroom battle after VEBA balked at the $139.7 million price tag Fiat offered to buy a 3.3 percent tranche of Chrysler shares last July, saying it was too low.

[driveshaftgrunt]

I know you hate him.


But hate him or not, there isn't a single one of us that doesn't owe our current wages and bennies to his administration's bailout of the industry. Without the bailout, we'd have been up shit creek with a voiding of all current union contracts and obligations by the Big Three the FIRST order of business.

Chosing to avoid an industrywide collapse, and NOT demanding massive concessions from the UAW like many wanted (even within his admin), was about the only concrete thing a President has ever done to benefit me directly.


To attack him on his handling of the bailout is about the dumbest thing possible.


And you know that what the Big Three builds in China is for the Chinese market don't you? You also know that we don't export any vehicles to China, or at least not any significant numbers, don't you?

Remember the NUMBER ONE argument against a bailout was that without a bailout COURTS could void union contracts. And everybody knows and many wrote, that the first thing to go would be healthcare followed by pensions. Next would be realigning the wage scale with the transplants. There was discussion within the administration that such an "adjustment" to the contract should be a condition of the bailout. Obama rejected it, refusing to reorganize GM and Chrysler on the backs of the current workers.

[jobs1stb4polarbear]

Democrats love to change history, don't they?

For one thing, it was Republican President Bush, not the Democrats’ Barack Obama, who originally decided not to stand by as the auto makers died. The deal saved an industry.....

To review for the ill informed: in the fall of 2008, President George W. Bush announced a $17 billion loan, split into $13.4 billion at once and another $4 billion in February.

When the deal was finally worked out, under Obama’s “Car Tsar” (a man with zero manufacturing experience ), the worker’s concessions amounted to a slash in all-in labor costs from around $76 per worker-hour in 2006 to just over $50. Abandoning decades of principle, the UAW approved a two-tier wage structure in which new hires start at $14 per hour.......roughly half the pay and benefits of more senior line workers. To top things off, Obama demanded— just one more teeny thing.......a strike ban. The pièce de norésistance! Under the government’s agreement with the companies, any strike by workers is grounds for forfeiting the loan.

That my friend, IS massive concessions from the UAW

...and maybe that is the problem or your way of thinking , " benefit me directly" -driveshatfgrunt

I care more of what benefits us(UAW), as a whole, its sad to see my UAW brothers and sisters make half my wage!

nice try though....ignorance is bliss!

[driveshaftgrunt]

I'm not a "Democrat" and I'm not changing history.

I'll readily admit that W's initial lifeline was HUGE.

But you'll find that Presidents often act as Presidents, not party heads, when the chips are down. Bush knew he was about to leave office, had no real time to address the problem and didn't want to be the guy that let GM die. And credit to him, it was a very Presidential thing to do. His advisers told him that a massive demand collapse was on the way, and a bankrupting of the auto industry could push us into a deflationary spiral that would rival the Great Depression. Kudos to him. I think the initial loan to get GM over the hump until the next election was what, about $25 billion?

--The strike ban was the only way the public wouldn't lose their mind on the deal. They didn't support it WITH the strike ban. It sucked, but no way the bailout gets approved without it.

--I'll admit concessions were made, and I HATE the two tiered wage. Its the #1 issue for this next contract.

--My point was that without the bailout, the alternative was bankruptcy. Which would have meant a loss of pensions, healthcare, wages, everything. It would have been the end of the UAW and the end of our contract. The decision was made by one man to keep most of what we've got. I've got/read Ratner's book.. Obama's own people were advising him to restructure in a way that crippled the UAW, especially existing workers/retirees bennies. Many believed, having come from Wall St., that the only way the Big 3 survived was by destroying the UAW and our wage/bennie level. He made a singular decision to NOT go that way. And here we are.

[jobs1stb4polarbear]

I sincerely apologize for calling you a democrat, that was below the belt.

[cal50]

Jan 21, 2013 8:33:44 GMT -5 jobs1stb4polarbear said:

I sincerely apologize for calling you a democrat, that was below the belt.

LOL!