What the Unions Think About a Chrysler/GM Merger
When two corporations decide to become one – someone has to lose their head – and it’s usually the assembly line worker. With General Motors and Chrysler, the nation’s Number 1 & Number 3 auto maker going back and forth about mergers, UAW (United Auto Workers) reps are none too pleased…in fact, they absolutely oppose any such merger of two automotive giants.
The UAW is highly concerned that any merger would be a huge threat to the jobs of thousands of automotive workers on both sides, throughout the United States and Canada. One UAW representative called the potential merger “an absolute catastrophe.”
Rumor and speculation of such a partnership has been billowing out of Detroit (and all over automotive blogs) since last Friday. According to both sides, each company is seeking outside financial prospects. As for now, it seems any such talks are on hold, presumably because of the world financial crisis. Sure, it has absolutely nothing to do with the story leaking out.
Industry analysts predict severe job cuts, especially if redundant models (pickups or mid size sedans) that were produced on separate Canada or US assembly lines were to be slashed. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said “I personally would not want to see anything that would result in a consolidation that would mean the elimination of additional jobs, but we’ve not had any official discussions at all with any of the companies.”
Canadian Auto Workers President Ken Lewenza said this week; “You’d have to be worried, if a merger did take place, about the consolidation of product lines, we would be very much concerned about the job security of our members. On the surface, it’s not something we would support.”
GM is not in any position to buy out Chrysler, or so it seems. The company is losing $1 Billion dollars almost every time Bob Lutz appears on TV. A merger would only increase GM’s problems and that Chrysler has nothing that GM needs. We will have to wait and see, once stocks stop hemorrhaging, if any such automotive merger will go through.
Oct 17th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
[...] already reported that United Auto Workers would hate to see a merger like this go through – but now it seems Chrysler engineer workers, if taken under the GM wing, [...]