The Auto Industry

G.Q. Jeeper · Apr 7, 2007

Listening to the news recently I am noticing the North American Auto Industry is taking some big hits, especially here in Canada. The CAW (Canadian Auto Workers Union) says that Daimler Chrysler is going to cut 2,000 jobs in Ontario and more cuts are to be expected. GM and Ford have gone through similar issues and have closed factories and laid off thousands of workers in their North American Operations.

What Buzz Hargrove pointed out (The CAW President) is that there is currently no auto-pact agreement with the Asian Market. Asia can “dump” all of its products in Canada while Canadian Built Cars (Including Non-Unionized Asian Built Models) are not allowed for export into their markets. Buzz is calling for an International Auto-Pact Agreement with Asia so that there is a fair and free market trade.

Do you guys in the US have the same issues? Is the UAW lobbing the Federal US Administration to come up with a similar agreement? Or are the two sides (Canada and the US) working together to come up with a better trade deal for our two markets?

What’s your take?

Jeff

RichP · Apr 7, 2007

G.Q. Jeeper said:
Listening to the news recently I am noticing the North American Auto Industry is taking some big hits, especially here in Canada. The CAW (Canadian Auto Workers Union) says that Daimler Chrysler is going to cut 2,000 jobs in Ontario and more cuts are to be expected. GM and Ford have gone through similar issues and have closed factories and laid off thousands of workers in their North American Operations.

What Buzz Hargrove pointed out (The CAW President) is that there is currently no auto-pact agreement with the Asian Market. Asia can “dump” all of its products in Canada while Canadian Built Cars (Including Non-Unionized Asian Built Models) are not allowed for export into their markets. Buzz is calling for an International Auto-Pact Agreement with Asia so that there is a fair and free market trade.

Do you guys in the US have the same issues? Is the UAW lobbing the Federal US Administration to come up with a similar agreement? Or are the two sides (Canada and the US) working together to come up with a better trade deal for our two markets?

What’s your take?

Jeff

Just another example of 'outsourcing' only now it's not only the IT market, I've been seeing this going on for years. What I was reading is the united steel workers are merging with their european counterpart. Next will be Intel with the huge research and production facility they are building in china, due to open in two years, it is projected to produce 200% more than their combined production facilities they currently have, they said mexican, indian and pacific rim labor is getting too expensive so I guess norinco will just supply them with a share of their political prisoners they use for arms and weapons production.... in another few years the US will be nothing but a strip mall with nobody to sell to.

G.Q. Jeeper · Apr 7, 2007

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-2049-12824/politics_economy/china/

RichP · Apr 7, 2007

They also bought the british MG brand and are putting it into production, they are going to be producing 3 models, sports car, saloon, coupe. One is going to be manufactured here in the US in a new plant. I think two of them are in production now, not sure about the US version.

Teellandor · Apr 8, 2007

G.Q. Jeeper said:
Do you guys in the US have the same issues? Is the UAW lobbing the Federal US Administration to come up with a similar agreement? Or are the two sides (Canada and the US) working together to come up with a better trade deal for our two markets?

What’s your take?

Jeff

Yes we do, sorta.

"American" cars are not built in the US. Most "Japanese" cars are.

Point of fact: my 2000 S10 was built in Mexico, but I had a 95 Subaru with a "Built With Union Pride. UAW Local #***, Kansas City, MO" sticker -in- the back windows and on the b-pillar.

Stumpalump · Apr 8, 2007

The unions were wonderfull when we had 10 year old kids working 60 hour weeks but now all they do is punish American companys out of the country.

bjoehandley · Apr 8, 2007

RichP said:
They also bought the british MG brand and are putting it into production, they are going to be producing 3 models, sports car, saloon, coupe. One is going to be manufactured here in the US in a new plant. I think two of them are in production now, not sure about the US version.

I saw in a model car forum a couple months back that after MG was bought, the Chinese stripped anything they could haul back to China and left the plant in a "comatose" (sorry, that's the best wat to describe it) state. There's half built cars on the line, parts laying all over, ect. What was odd though was that MG more or less died from the "implied quality" induced lack of customers, now all of a sudden there's some intrige (sp?) in these new Chinese built MG's. Only difference seems to be is that these cars are built in China.

RichP · Apr 8, 2007

bjoehandley said:
I saw in a model car forum a couple months back that after MG was bought, the Chinese stripped anything they could haul back to China and left the plant in a "comatose" (sorry, that's the best wat to describe it) state. There's half built cars on the line, parts laying all over, ect. What was odd though was that MG more or less died from the "implied quality" induced lack of customers, now all of a sudden there's some intrige (sp?) in these new Chinese built MG's. Only difference seems to be is that these cars are built in China.

The main reason MG went out of business is they stopped importing them to the US, same reason for mini's dying out. The last few years of MG's were actually nice looking wheels that got good mileage and had pretty good reliability, they just decided not to jump thru the import hoops of US certification, emissions and crash testing. Other than that they were darn good cars with ONE exception and that was the carbs, a FI MG would have been awesome, they were $300 more than a Vega GT in 73 and that was for the MGB GT too. The electrics were even pretty good in the 70's.
As for the china thing, thats just hype and was in the news.

The Auto Industry

G.Q. Jeeper

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RichP

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G.Q. Jeeper

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RichP

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Teellandor

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Stumpalump

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RichP

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