UAW In Detroit Briefing With Ford Officials On "Business Situation"

http://www.laborradio.org/node/8766

By Doug Cunningham

In Detroit today the UAW is meeting with Ford Motor company officials to be briefed on what the company calls the "changing business situation". the unions says Ford's production for 2009 will likely be covered. Ford is in the process of cutting back on truck production and trying to ramp up smaller car production to respond to changes in consumer demand sparked by the skyrocketing gasoline prices.

I'm old enough to remember the oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the effect that both of those incidents had on the price of gasoline and it's effect on the national and Detroit economimes.
The American car companies did not willingly respond to the consumer's desire for smaller, more gas efficient cars. They never shifted a significant percentage of their design and manufacturing from large vehicles to smaller ones. Throughout the 1990's, consumer demand for trucks and SUV's allowed the American auto manufacturers to remain profitable, even while yielding the small car/high mileage market to the Japanese and other import manufacturers.
I've watched the American auto companies make mistake after mistake after mistake and watch their market share fall. I've watched UAW jobs disappear from Michigan and elsewhere, due to those management decisions. I've also listened to right wingers blame the wage and benefit packages for the economic ills of the auto companies.
Get the batteries and build the hybrids. Build cars that get 50+ mpg, Build the E85 vehicles. Build more natural gas vehicles. Consumer demand has shifted. Build what the consumers want.
I'm tired of seeing my state suffer economically because of the American auto manufacturer's refusal to build the high mileage vehicles.