Word: detroiters
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Cerberus LLC, the once powerful private equity firm, swept into Detroit in the autumn of 2006 to acquire a 51% stake in GMAC, General Motors' financial arm, and less than a year later it drove off with Chrysler, described at the time as the "capstone" of Cerberus' industrial empire. Never mind that the seller, Daimler, was only too happy to get rid of the auto company...
...before Dixie gets too smug, it should acknowledge a debt it owes Detroit, or rather Detroit's labor union, the United Autoworkers (UAW). The UAW has made the Big Three's labor force one of the world's best paid and protected - clout that is now a focus of what's wrong with Detroit. Still, the foreign automakers are in America in large part because, as their more fuel-efficient cars became popular in the U.S. in the 1980s and '90s, the UAW lobbied to get them to build production plants here...
...True, those Asian and European firms flocked to the South to avoid Detroit's high-cost culture. But while southern auto employees extol the union-free, right-to-work rules of their states, the truth is that they might still be earning the basement-level wages of a Mississippi textile worker today if the UAW hadn't leaned on the likes of Mercedes in Washington. "Mercedes wanted a much lower pay scale when it arrived here," says Cashman, who notes that veteran southern autoworkers now earn "only fractionally less" than the average $27 an hour for Detroit workers (and often...
...Perhaps. But labor advocates still fear for U.S. workers if the South's automotive industry supplants Detroit as the template. And it's not as if all is as shiny as a new Lexus in Dixie right now. The Mercedes plant in Vance recently had to cut back to a four-day workweek; and with even Japanese powerhouse Toyota facing U.S. sales slumps, the company this week said it's delaying the startup of a new plant in Mississippi that will make its Prius hybrid car. Even workers like Ray now feel that a union "would definitely benefit" Dixie autoworkers...
...Three automaker closed all of its factories for a month - twice as long as the usual year-end shutdown. Chrysler's sales were down 47% in November, even worse than the 37% decline for the industry over all. And all the grim headlines about Detroit's uncertain future aren't helping local salesman. At this sprawling dealership in suburban Kansas City, the biggest problem facing auto salesmen is squeamish buyers spooked by too much talk about bailouts and bankruptcies. "Our problem is getting them in the door," Sullivan said of his nervous customers. So Friday's announced $13 billion rescue...