> Does it occur to anyone that the poor designs, high pension costs
> and increased foreign competition may be part of a long term plan
> to shut US labor out of the automobile business by shutting US
> plants and importing auto products via FDI . . . ?
Take a look at the map of the "global playing field" comparing the trends in market shares of GM and Toyota in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia:
<http://www.detnews.com/2005/specialreport/0502/13/A01-87977.htm>.
GM's share is declining in North America and Europe but is increasing in Latin America and Asia. Asia is the only place where GM is growing and Toyota is declining. GM must be counting on making and selling more cars in Asia, which, after all, has the largest population of the four areas.
After the present round of cuts, "G.M. will employ 125,000 Americans" -- down from "more than 600,000 workers in 1979." Of the 125,000 Americans, about 86,000 will be hourly workers. (Cf. <http:// montages.blogspot.com/2005/06/gm-hourly-workers-on-road-to.html>)
However, take a look at "Figure 3: US Employment in Automotive Manufacturing": <http://www.ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSreports/05apr/RL32883.pdf>.
It doesn't show a radical decline like that of hourly jobs at GM itself -- it's been basically flat since 1977. Productivity, in the meantime, has gone up quite a bit -- 50% greater than in 1977, outperforming the record of "all manufacturing."
So, the GM strategy for North America has been spinning off parts and outsourcing work to the spun-off parts companies and others -- in the process eliminating jobs -- to reduce its own UAW payroll, while squeezing more work out of workers at both GM and its subcontractors. That has reached the limit of its usefulness, so now it's time to take away pensions and health care benefits, especially from _retirees_. Note that US transplants of foreign manufacturers -- while they have to offer health care benefits and make pension promises to current workers -- are free from the costs of pensions and health care benefits for US retirees with which GM is saddled.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>