What killed the auto industry?

[dcsmart]

Gregg Shotwell, a retired GM/Delphi worker and founder of the Soldiers of Solidarity network, answers the myth that it was the UAW--and its demands for fair compensation for autoworkers--that led to the industry's decline.

April 20, 2009

IF YOU believe the Motley Fool and other "stock advisors" in the business press, 90 percent of GM's losses can be attributed to the United Auto Workers (UAW), which accounts for 10 percent of a vehicle's cost.
The math may seem a bit obtuse but the politics is clear as fizz. The UAW's disproportionate responsibility for the automakers' unprofitability is based on the same sort of accounting whiz that led GM to claim they lost $39 billion in November 2007 due to "deferred tax credits."

If it smells like b.s. and it looks like b.s., trust your common sense and skip the taste test.
Thanks to corporate welfare, GM accumulated more tax deductions than they could take in a year. So they deferred the tax deductions and booked them as an asset until the asset got so fat it attracted the attention of auditors who asked--"quote unquote"--What the f##k is this?

Rick Wagoner was quick to assure the fools not to puzzle their pretty heads. The $39 billion wasn't actually a loss of cash, he said, since it never had a tangible, marketable existence. It was merely an accounting gimmick--a fancy--like paper wings.

The fools refer to compensation like pension and health care as "welfare," despite the fact that unlike "deferred tax credits," the compensation was earned by productive labor. It's no wonder the fools are having trouble figuring out what part of GM is losing what, and how much, and why. They ignore the obvious and thumb their noses at analysis. For example:

-- GM sold 4.4 million vehicles in the U.S. in 1992 and employed 265,000 UAW members.
-- GM sold 4.5 million vehicles in the U.S. in 2007 and employed 73,000 UAW members.

A company can't make productivity improvements as astounding as that and lose money on labor. Something else is shaking the timbers. Maybe we should question the competitiveness of salary workers? How do they compare with their Japanese counterparts in compensation and achievement? Or more precisely, who's controlling the money?
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FULL ARTICLE
http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/20/what-killed-the-auto-industry