Workplace Issues

Automotive consumers have been heard, but much too late. Last week, Ford finally heeded the message (September 15 post, below); this week, Chrysler.

Chrysler is cutting back its production of truck and SUV models. It will probably close plants, cut jobs and earn $1.52 billion less next year. Chrysler's CEO said, "You can question did we wait too long. I'd have to say we did." Molasses management.

Last night, David Letterman broadcast a video clip of his staff dropping a safe from a rooftop onto a Buick—a product of General Motors, the third manufacturer in the American automotive triad—just so they could see it crush. I wonder what that means as I drive away in my Honda and my husband in his Nissan.

"Ford Motor Co. will offer its 75,000 hourly workers packages of incentives to leave the company, cut one-third of its white-collar jobs and sell or shut down its parts-making plants as part of a turnaround plan intended to slash annual operating costs by $5 billion."

Why is this necessary? Well, if you're on the outside, you already know, but apparently those on the inside are stymied. Bill Ford, now Executive Chairman, blamed it on, "…rapid shifts in consumer demand..." Rapid? Didn't anyone notice the attraction of customers to Toyotas and Hondas that began 30 years ago? Oh wait, David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. says, "The big issue with Ford is not Toyota or Honda -- it's GM…" So who are GM's biggest competitors? I hope no one paid for that research.

What happens now? "Ford officials said the changes they are announcing will allow the company's North American operations to become profitable again in 2009." In three years? Only three years? That's warp speed, isn't it? So what were they doing three years ago? They could have prevented this!

And just how will Ford change so quickly? Ford's new CEO, Alan Mulally, says, "…We will focus intensely on the needs of our customers in North America…" You mean like Honda and Toyota do? What a novel idea!

We, on the outside, already knew what Ford needed to do. I wonder what they're paying this guy, and the executives who got Ford into this mess in the first place, as they put tens of thousands of employees out of work.