Behind the Scenes @ Chrysler Dealers

[ilima]

From stories I've heard and read dealers were placed under very heavy pressure to buy a bunch of inventory in recent months. And it was implied that this would ensure that the dealership would not be axed.

Something smells really rotten about the way Chrysler executives operated.

I hope that those dealerships sue over broken verbal contracts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/bu...l?ref=business

http://www.tampabay.com/news/busines...cle1005012.ece

http://www.bradenton.com/business/story/1465372.html

And just a general comment about wages because it's been mentioned several times on the thread. The $60-80 per hour that's been floating around the media is how much the big three are paying in total towards worker costs divided by the total number of active workers. That includes retirement, health care, etc.

Importantly, all the benefits and healthcare costs of retirees go into this number that's made to sound like active (not retired) workers are making a ton of money. friend of mine is from Detroit and her grandfather is a retired autoworker. She remarked that he's been retired for longer than he worked. I'm sure there are more retired autoworkers in Detroit than there are active workers.

People are living longer and as they get older their health care costs are going to go up. The Japanese companies haven't been in the US that long, so they don't have that many retired workers, so that's why their costs per worker appear lower. In reality, the pay at Japanese-owned factories is only a couple of bucks an hour less than the UAW-Detroit hourly wage averages (e.g. $26 vs. $28 an hour). A good illustration of how healthcare costs are really dragging this country down.

Some links about the mythical $70/hour UAW worker:

http://colorado.mediamatters.org/items/200812150003

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.ht...2-56dfc3323682