Word: auto
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...repo men are working overtime. Paul Lamoureux, a Detroit repossessor, is now pulling in 120 cars a month, compared with 80 a year ago. General Motors Acceptance Corp., the biggest U.S. auto lender, repossessed 2.1% of its customers' cars in the nine months ending Sept. 30, which was 25% more than during all of 1987. One reason for the upsurge in bad loans is that auto lenders have gone after riskier customers, among them first-time car buyers and recent college graduates. Another problem is the longer term of today's auto loans: typically 48 or 60 months, instead...
...Toughen Auto Fuel-Efficiency Requirements...
...time General Motors closed its plant in Fremont, Calif., in 1982, the factory had one of the worst labor-relations records in the country. "We were fighting with GM all the time," says United Auto Workers committeeman Ed Valdez. "The product was going down the line with no one paying any attention to it. 'Ship it! Ship it!' they said." Today, working for New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., a joint venture formed by GM and Toyota in 1983, the same workers are producing almost defect-free Chevrolets and Toyotas with a higher efficiency rating than any GM plant...
NUMMI's influence on the lives of its people has been immense. NUMMI's influence on the auto industry has been more limited. It is not yet a profitable business, at least partly because of competitive tension between GM and Toyota at the corporate level. Although GM has sent thousands of visitors through NUMMI, the reactions to it "vary plant by plant," according to GM's highest-ranking executive at NUMMI, John Arle. "GM is a big ship to turn around...
...automakers are leading the search for skilled, literate workers. GM devotes more than 15% of the $170 million it spends yearly on job training to remedial education. In an attempt to match the quality of many foreign manufacturers, Detroit's Big Three carmakers joined the United Auto Workers in 1982 to create a comprehensive education and training program. At Ford Motor Co. alone, more than 8,500 of 106,000 blue-collar workers have since enrolled in basic-skills classes at the company's 50 learning centers in plants nationwide. Says Ford chairman Donald E. Petersen: "The prosperity...