Word: chryslers
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When CEO's Bob Nardelli (Chrysler), Alan Mullaly (Ford), and Rick Wagoner (GM) appeared before Congress late last month in search of a bailout, they were basically told, "Get the hell out of here until you have detailed plans to get your industry in order." Well, here they are: Three business plans, numbering between 14 and 37 pages, providing a detailed outline of how each executive plans to turn his company around - and what the Federal government can do to help...
...Indeed, even before GM, Ford and Chrysler officials submit recovery proposals Tuesday in hopes of persuading Congress to steer aid their way, Europe has started to react. French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a four-year, 400 million-euro package to help French automakers build more environmentally friendly cars. Sarkozy also called last week for the loosening of E.U. restrictions on direct state aid to companies, restrictions established to encourage more-competitive markets in Europe. "We can't have the Americans unlocking $25 billion in loans for their three manufacturers while we would be caught up in a state-assistance regime...
...angst is playing out, consider Tipton, Ind., population barely 5,000. In April 2007, the German manufacturer Getrag LLC announced it would build a $455 million plant about an hour's drive north of Indianapolis. The plant's sole purpose was to build energy-efficient transmissions for Chrysler. The plant would inject some 1,200 new jobs into a state whose economy is both ailing and heavily dependent on the automotive industry. Townsfolk talked of a new hotel, a new fast-food restaurant. Earlier this month, however, Getrag announced that the entity established to build the Tipton plant would file...
Meanwhile, just to the north, in Kokomo, Ind., Rich Boruff, vice- president of the United Auto Workers local 685, is closely watching the developments. Kokomo boasts plants for Chrysler and one of the nation's largest auto parts suppliers, Delphi. So there is much at stake. Boruff and his troops have been calling and e-mailing their Congressional representatives, urging them to support a bailout for the major automakers. The consequences of a bankruptcy declaration from either of the Big Three, he fears, are just too severe. "It'd kill us," he says...
From the union's perspective, the health-care benefits always represented deferred wages, says Jerry Tucker, a former member of the UAW board. In addition, as GM, Ford and Chrysler have cut their blue-collar payrolls in half, from 300,000 to 150,000, over the past three years, the health-care benefits have become more important, he says. "More than two-thirds of workers taking early retirement aren't eligible for Medicare. A lot of them didn't even want to retire," he says. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said in the fall of 2007 that the VEBA trusts would...