CHICAGO (Reuters) - General Motors Corp said on Monday it will cut production in North America due to declining demand through the first quarter of 2009. Highlights:
* Says production cuts to result in idling of 5,500 hourly employees
* Says to record a charge of at least $300 million in Q4, 2008, for capacity
actions
* Says have started providing materials for the Strasbourg transmission plant
to interested parties
* Says GMAC will cease wholesale originations to dealers in Australia, New
Zealand by December 31 and transition out of business
* Expects $1.4 billion cash expenditures for 2008 capacity reductions in U.S.,
Canada of which $0.1 billion to be spent in 2008, $0.6 billion in 2009, $0.7
Should U.S. taxpayers really be providing billions of dollars to bailout companies (GM, Ford and Chrysler) that compensate their workers 52.5% more than the market (assuming Toyota wages and benefits are market), 54% more than management and professional workers, 132% more than the average manufacturing wage, and 157% more than the average compensation of all American workers?
regarding that chart, I wonder how much of the retirees payouts are included in it? I knew an old guy who had worked at Ford (they always called it "Fords") and he got a great pension and better than medicare medical coverage and such.
and both his sons were Ford(s) employees. One of them used to make between $250-275K a year because he was a toolist and would go to work every day, punch in, then spent about 80% of his time sleeping in a back room or helping his sister who lived across the street from the Ford factory remodel her house. I swear that guy never worked more than 20 hours a week, but he would get away with being punched in ten hours a day, then all day Saturday and all day Sunday and he would get double time and then triple time. You'd think he would be a millionaire, but he would waste all his money. He had been married 6 times, maybe more now for all I know. Paid all kinds of alimony and child support and never had more than 10K in the bank. got in car crashes while driving drunk and had all kinds of court-ordered compensation to pay for... Idiot... a real idiot, but Lordie, he made so much money by milking the system
there are still some union employees from the old days that sit and do nothing under old union contracts. But, that's changing with the two tier system. that in itself must cause some stress in the work place I would think.
there must be one somewhere. If I see it, I'll c&p it here. maybe you could make a seperate subsection for it so it won't get lost in the new thread posts
i gotta make the dinner and do the last of my chores. i'll be back later tonight.
I want like a running total thing... it would be good to compare things like how many layoffs were announced in a month and how many people actually got laid off in that month
there's got to be about fifty million bloggers out there in the InternetS. one of them is probably keeping a running total. if we could find him/her we could c & p
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4A96OR20081110 
