Chrysler to Announce Job Cuts, Plant Closings (11,000 jobs)

The Chrysler Group is set to announce a restructuring plan Wednesday aimed at securing its place in the crowded American car market — and within DaimlerChrysler.

The plan is expected to include the elimination of about 11,000 blue- and white-collar jobs along with the closing of one and possibly two assembly plants — in Delaware and Missouri — people with direct knowledge of the plan said this week.

Chrysler may shut smaller plants elsewhere and announce other cost-cutting measures to meet its stated goal of reducing costs by about $1,000 a vehicle.

Along with those steps, Chrysler may announce a project to share more parts and engineering technology with Mercedes-Benz. It has largely avoided doing so since the DaimlerChrysler merger in 1998, even though other car companies routinely use the same underpinnings for their different brands.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/business/14chrysler.html

I was going to add a quote from Junior here about tax cuts and jobs but I just didn't have the stomach for it.

Americans get the screw.

Of course we all knew this was the biggest lie ever since his buddies are all shipping jobs abroad

rich richer.

Tax cuts and oil subsidies - good for oil companies - bad for the rest of us.

When no one can buy gas or oil because they have no job or it is too damn expensive, how does that help the oil companies?

on edit: sp.

The ownership society wins.

White collar in this context means management. Corporations these days are typically no more benevolent toward entry and middle management than they are to union members.

My husband is "white collar" (Chrysler engineer) and he is not management.

I am accustomed to seeing employees labeled as non-management if they are in the a union or anything like a labor bargaining unit. All others are in management. Another distinction is that non-management employees get paid for every hour they work. Management is usually but not always salaried. For about a third of my career I was in the union (non-management) then went into what was called management - even though for most of the 20 years that ensued I didn't supervise or 'manage' direct reporting people. The term 'associate' came into use about 10 years ago to describe union folks because some people felt 'non-management' was demeaning.

Just a matter of symantics, I guess. I don't care what labels we use as long as it doesn't get in the way of communicating.

I don't know how familiar you are with the auto industry. As I said, my husband is not union, is an engineer, but gets paid for his overtime.

We have a supervisory unit of the UAW where I work. They are all managers, but they are union.

Most people's perceptions are the same as yours, but that is not always correct.

But we do need our labels.

I hope your husband's job will not be threatened.

Lasher

He's 59 and has 14 years in with them, so if they ask him to leave his pension won't be that great. He is definitely in that group that the executives like to target.

Either way, if he isn't let loose, they'll just pile more work on him. It's sometimes just as hard on those left behind because they run them into the ground.

Thanks for your concern. By the way, I am very prounion. Organized one myself:)

I spent 10 years in the CWA before I went into management. I was a chief steward most of that time. I once called a wildcat strike in support of fellow union members in an adjacent county. Almost got fired over that.

We don't have the John L. Lewis UMW any more but it's much better than nothing. I ususally go to the annual UMWA Labor Day rally nearby. Lots of politicians are there during election years.

What union did you organize?

I organized the supervisor's unit of the UAW.

That couldn't have been easy. I'll be a lot of the supervisors wanted to stay uninvolved while you took the lead. But they wanted you to keep them posted on everything you got done. Right?

I wish we would have had union representation. At our corporation it was only entry and middle management who didn't have a contract. Third tier and above management all had contracts. And of course all the union people did.

11,000 more workers unnecessarily fired due to company mismanagement. MisMANAGEMENT . . . yet it's ALWAYS the worker who pays the price.

And those blue-collar workers are going to have the roughest go at the job-hunting circus. I mean, are they going to another factory? Chances are they'll be hunting for a job that pays 1/2 to 1/3 what they made at Chrysler, if that.

Maybe our nation's "leaders" will wake up about this before there is blood in the streets. I doubt they will, but stranger things have happened.

Quite a few I suspect!


Chrysler Group and Chery Automobile are reported to be negotiating over the sale of a gearbox manufacturing line that sources say will be shipped to China from the US... http://www.automotiveworld.com/WVMA/content.asp?contentid=58114



...A key part of that growth will include the addition of more fuel-efficient small cars to Chrysler's lineup. To get them, LaSorda is turning to China. He has signed a letter of intent to import cars from Chery Automobile Co. in the future. This will likely make Chrysler the first Detroit-based auto company to import Chinese cars to the U.S.

"We can't compete in this segment with our cost structure in Canada and the U.S.," he says... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070207.wwh-chrysler0208/BNStory/Business



Chery Automobile, German-U.S. carmaker Daimler-Chrysler's new partner in China, has announced plans to build three plants abroad to assemble its own brand of cars.

Yin Tongyao, chairman of the company based in East China's Anhui Province, said the three plants will be built in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South America. "We will formulate a clear plan for these plants this year," he said.

Yin did not reveal the size of investment in the new plants, their production capacities or specific locations... http://english.anhuinews.com/system/2007/01/24/001658189.shtml

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - About 13,000 Chrysler workers will lose their jobs under a plan the struggling automaker says would cut costs and return its U.S. operations to profitability by next year.

The plan was announced Wednesday morning, hours after Chrysler's parent, DaimlerChrysler AG, said it was considering "far-reaching strategic options with partners" and that "no option is being excluded."

The plan calls for closing the company's Newark, Del., assembly plant, and reducing shifts at plants in Warren, Mich., and St. Louis. A parts distribution center near Cleveland also will be closed.

Under the plan, 11,000 production workers — 9,000 in the U.S. and 2,000 in Canada — will lose their jobs over the next three years, and 2,000 salaried jobs also will be cut — 1,000 this year and 1,000 in 2008.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070214/ap_on_bi_ge/chrysler_restructuring

is what toyota,honda,and other japanese manufacturers do not have to pay per unit. they do not pay retirement health costs and pensions. universal health care would certainly help this country regain it`s economic health.

If Toyota doesn't pay health and pension costs, why aren't their vehicles less expensive?

the morons will forget that they don't have a decent living standard, because what matters is what happens after death not before.

"Indeed, until last fall, three-quarters of Chrysler’s models were light trucks, even though its American and Asian rivals were shifting to build smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles that buyers sought when gasoline prices spiked above $3 a gallon."

Another American corp with its head up its a##. The execs. will make out ok, its the workers that take it in the shorts. A calculated offloading of American jobs through depletion of the work force. The auto boys need new expensive tools to make the smaller cars. Shut a few plants down, go overseas with the new work, everyones happy - stockholders, nonautomotive workers.

We need to stand together on Jobs, they are number one. Let Washington know you are
concerned about keeping work in America.

They have a successful plant in Alabama. Their sister company, Kia is opening a plant in Georgia about 30 miles away soon. Non-union, but reasonable pay. Made in America. The cars are good. Green. Get good mileage and cost less. What's not to love??? Good riddance GM, Ford, Chrysler. You are obsolete!

I take it that Kia or Hyundai can fire anyone without any reason and the worker has no recourse because they're non union. No pension so when they retire they collect Social Security with no health care benefits, guess who ends up paying for that...me,you and the rest of America.

very sad....

the time will come when the majority of japanese/korean cars will be made in the U.S., and the majority of the U.S. cars will be made in China/Mexico/Canada...There are more than a few industry-connected people that get hard-ons about the job cuts because they want the UAW to be the scapegoat and finally die off...Just wait until the Chinese organize, and THEN where will they move operations?

here's hoping they recover quickly. it is the least i can do at the moment.

I'd like to finish reading the article, but I have to check my TiVO to check out the last few episodes of American Idol. Think I'll gobble some fast food while I'm at it. Also, gotta plan my Mall trip for tomorrow and figure out when to get my Celebrity Gossip Surfing on the net in. (TMZ.com is teh Rulez!)

This Economy stuff is interesting, but like most Americans, I should be focusing on the real issues and the really important matters.

:sarcasm:

I echo the sentiment from the Hershey thread.....

What IS is going to take to wake this country up to the deep shit it's in economically.