Who's To Blame For The American Car Industry Decline? Management OR Union Workers?

The middle class at fault? how about the over paid exects? I would like to see the break down on how much the brass makes in comparison to the blue collar guys, I am all for being rich, but to finish off the middle class you would then have the very rich and everyone else would be a potential abductor like some places in Africa, a friend of mine was in Africa last year and he was the only one not car jacked, possibly because he had a heavily armed body guard? Everyone had attack dogs and high fences, and it is legal to have flame throwers for the car jackers, not a place I would want to live.

@ eldard

That is perhaps the most ignorant, prejudicial and baseless statement I've heard this quarter.

I bought into the Lutz kool-aide until he started to blame California for not jumping on the ethanol bandwagon and buy some of his questionable product.

Eldar, I think your statement should be aimed at the American Gov. not the people, they are ignorant of the American Policy and what they have done in the past and what they are doing now, it all comes down to the extreme rich pushing the buttons, corporate America.,and the media not telling the full truth, or spinning it the way money points it, just a sad reality, I have seen it myself.

I think it's both.,

Again it's always easy to try to blame the UAW but every other manufacture has a union in it's home country and some are paid more than the UAW while some have the benefit of entirely free health care something that is chocking American manufacturing as a whole. NO! its not the UAW"S fault they dont design or have control of what cars to build look at the Pontiac Aztec it was not the UAW's decision to build it.

It is both. The management for designing crappy cars and the UAW workers for putting already poorly designed cars together improperly. My family and I came to America in 1980. Our first three cars were a Ford, a Mercury, and a Pontiac. All three of them had multiple quality issues. Our fourth was a Toyota, and we never went back to an American car again,except once-a Jeep that we had to replace the transmission at 16,000 miles. Throughout the years, I've owned Nissans, BMWs, an Audi, a Honda, and a Lexus.
I once had a conversation with a retired UAW worker, where he informed me that he, other UAW workers, and GM management knowingly installed bad parts inside GM cars just so they can churn out as many autos as possible. That just made me more willing to stay away from GM cars.

In Japan there is a sense of pride in there workmanship, they think as a team, north America has to mature and stop being short sighted, although I can imagine with the quality of American vehicles that the has improved maybe many attitudes have too a bit? With America as Canada's biggest trading partner I hoe there cars are on top, because when America does good so do we.

The fault rest squarely on Management.Ever since American companies decided they were going to be service companies rather than manufacture products,there was a deliberate attempt to design and produce rubbish or outsource manufacturing. The quest for stratospherical profit margins and the belligerence towards labour certainly exacerbates the problem.
American greed and ignorance at his finest moment.

Blame me for not buying an American car.

The management for designing crappy cars and the UAW workers for putting already poorly designed cars together improperly.
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Kims
<a href=“http://www.sexyeditor.com” rel=“dofollow”> used cars</a>

Lets see...greed, I want mine the hell with the next guy, consumers are stupid, we are too big to fail, I don't feel like working today, let me take what I can before I leave and jerk the pension system to my advantage, drinking and smoking on the job is ok, who cares what the competition is doing or what their cost basis is, they don't call us the big three for no reason...if these were the reasons for failure than it is both management and labor's fault. Idiots !

While it is true that labor has been overall horrible, spoiled, incompetent, ridden with communist propaganda, overpaid, uneducated, and unmotivated the responsibility for all that belongs to management. The shortsighted, profit is everything, marketing/lying is more important than engineering/technical excellence, MBA rotten management , After all why have management in the first place if workers are going to/not going to do whatever they want?! When comparing the big three to successful companies one sees the difference in management style and involvement, the attention to detail and quality, worker treatment, tradition and pride. Comparing them to other failed manufacturers like the British and the Italians one sees the similarities. The French at least innovated and used their residual colonial influence to sell their cars.

To blame? George Bush and Obama. Bush messed it up when he made gas prices reach above $4.00 a gal for the summer of 08' and Obama for not trying hard enough to help the economy. Obama ain't did s**t since he got in office but use our tax money so his ugly wife can go all over the world trying to get people to lose weight. That ain't her job. That's weight watcher's or Jenny Craig's job.

Also add that stupid standard health care crap called Obama care. There's more to worry about than people's health. Just because Europe has standard healthcare doesn't mean that it will help this country out by given us standard health care. Obmam is from La La Land. Infact because of him inflation is higher than ever. If inflation could go down it would be better. American's money is getting less and less valuable ever .05 second. That's why prices are going up and greed plays a role too. I don't like Obama.

Also technology does play a tiny role for the economy too. Think about it. Technolgoy is evolving so fast that more and more grocery stores are using self checkouts and less cashers. That's less jobs right there. Also paying bills online instead of using snail mail. And even though cable is a rip off compared to video streaming... poor blockbuster laying off all those employees and having to go to video streaming to compete with Netflix. Technolgy is good and bad. Don't forget on the Ohio Turnpike they have to lay off more people for the toll bridge because of the E Pass.

The problem with the question is that the assumption begins with union labor being implicated as the cause behind the decline of American auto quality.

I realize there are many who believe the grand fantasy myth that unions are the cause of manufacturing decline in the U.S. because it serves the purpose of conveniently deflecting blame from the real decision makers at the top; the ones who benefit the most and yet are always ready to scape goat blame when things go wrong.

Unionized workers in countries like Germany, Japan and South Korea receive far more generous benefits than unionized workers here in the U.S. and builds some of the best quality cars sold in the global market
but are not marginalized as perpetrators of contributory economic sabotage.

I've studied this for a long time, and here is my answer, which I selfishly believe to be reasonably accurate:

1 - It is NOT the UAW Workers fault, for the most part. True, some slugs would do a lousy job on certain days because of whatever reasons (hungover, ticked off at boss, issues at home, etc.), but that can exist anywhere. Things like what happened below don't help the matter though....
[link]http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5364422-Chrysler-UAW-Workers-Caught-Getting-Drunk-High-–-Again-Video[/link]


2 - It IS the management of the manufacturer's fault, which kept design engineers focused more on cheap costs than quality. I truly blame everyone in the food chain that permitted the American car companies to select cheap metals, plastics, wiring harnesses, weather stripping, etc. for cars and also allowing wide gaps between exterior and internal panels, which eventually led to squeaks, rattles, leaks and more. You CANNOT blame the UAW assemblers here because they had crappy parts with crappy design to work with, along with restrictions on 'stopping the line' and other factors.

To prove my point, think of this: Many Hondas and Toyotas (and other foreign cars) are built in America using American workers. The Honda Accord is one of the most reliable cars in the country and American workers assemble them. If the problem was American workers, wouldn't the problem hit Honda also? Honda's design engineers specify better parts, better switchgear, better quality checks. I would bet they are actually easier to assemble than some domestic cars.

3 - The UAW union does have some culpability in this though. With all the wage rules and other factors American car manufacturers had to deal with over the years, I believe that the big 3 had to trim budgets somewhere and make the numbers work. IMO, that led to the cheaper part requirements. (I'm not against unions - I just think some of the wage+benefit expectations got a little out-of-control over the years with the UAW)

Just my own personal example: I own a number of decent cars, and one of them is a 2007 Corvette. I haven't had an ounce of trouble with it, it runs flawlessly and I smile every time I drive it. But whenever I close a door, the door-panel rattles briefly because of the cheap plastic inside. That's the way it was designed and built. Even an entry level Honda Civic doesn't have door panels that shake.

This is a bit dated, but check this out:
[link]http://www.aftermarketnews.com/Item/28594/uaw_losing_pay_edge_foreign_automakers_bonuses_boost_wages_in_us_plants_as_detroit_car_companies_struggle.aspx[/link]

Lastly, isn't it strange that despite all the costs to ship vehicles to the US and the Tariffs that are imposed on them, that American cars aren't significantly less expensive than their foreign counterparts on a model-by-model basis? Shouldn't the big three be able to compete better against these imports?

I'm thrilled that the big three a

To biggs points in part of which I agree. However, domestic cars cost more here in the U.S. because foreign manufacturers who build cars here have, in their own home countries, a comprehensive universal health care system that covers all citizens so these auto manufacturers are able to produce vehicles at a lower cost instead of having to add this cost unto each vehicle.

BOTH!!!

Management!

Unionized workers had no influence on years of American automotive industry car's poor design, manufacturing or uncompetitive pricing & packaging.

Management made the decision to focus on pumping out overpriced, converted small & midsize trucks into inefficient sport utility vehicles.

American citizens are also partially to blame for being short-sided enough to believe that gas prices would not rise and eating too much so that they do not fit comfortably in smaller cars.