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And make no mistake, GM is in a horrible bind. That $1.1 billion loss in the first quarter doesn't begin to tell the whole story. The carmaker is saddled with a $1,600-per-vehicle handicap in so-called legacy costs, mostly retiree health and pension benefits. Any day now, GM is likely to get slapped with a junk-bond rating. GM has lost a breathtaking 74% of its market value -- some $43 billion -- since spring of 2000, giving it a valuation of $15 billion. What really scares investors is that GM keeps losing ground in its core business of selling cars. Underinvestment has left it struggling to catch up in technology and design. Sales fell 5.2% on GM's home turf last quarter as Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ), Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY ), and other more nimble competitors ate GM's lunch. Last month, CEO G. Richard "Rick" Wagoner Jr. and his team gave up even guessing where they'll stand financially at the end of this year.
Why GM's Plan Won't Work
Just a little food for thought here, while not blaming this situation totally on the Union themselves, it did take GM to agree to all those contracts that put them into that situation in the first place.
I'll give you a little example, I do a little bit for the aviation industry, recently the machinist Union at Boeing demanded a new contract, they went back and forth on this contract with Boeing offering a 8 year no strike contract , then the machinist came back and demanded that all aircraft be built in Wa. with Union labor. So Boeing decided to build a new plant in S.C. without Union labor taking the new 3000 jobs with them. While I have nothing against a Union in general , to me it would seem that the first job of a Union should be the empolyment of it's members.
Yes, I know well about the Boeing situation. A close friend was a Metalurgical Engineer for Boeing when Boeing decided that they could screw over their engineers, since they did not have a real union. Enough engineers struck and walked the lines that Boeing finally had to give in. Then proceeded to outsource much of their engineering.
Now that has worked real well, hasn't it? The wonder company that produced the 737 and the 747 cannot seem to get it's act together for their Dreamliner. Their factory with non-union labor will turn out the same.
Rocks, I've been in the aviation industry a long time and can tell you a few things here , first the all Boeing aircraft regardless of type be they 737-X all the way to 787-X are the result of International cooperation in the production process. The 787 is not unique in that nor is any aircraft made by any company.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes performs major assembly of all 737s at its factories in the United States; however, parts for the airplanes come from suppliers all over the world.
Assembling a 737 is a complex job. Factory employees must take 367,000 parts; an equal number of bolts, rivets and other fasteners; and 36 miles (58 kilometers) of electrical wire; and put them all together to form an airplane.
The fuselage, or body of the airplane, is produced at a Boeing plant in Wichita, Kan., in the American Midwest. At that facility, employees attach the nose section of the airplane's fuselage to the center and tail sections. When the fuselage is complete, it is strapped aboard a railroad car for a 2,175-mile (3,500-kilometer) train ride across the United States.
When the train arrives at the Renton factory, the fuselage is transferred to a large cart and wheeled to the final assembly building, where it spends about 13 days.
During the first stage of final assembly, factory workers focus on the interior. In the same way carpenters might finish the inside of a house, they install insulation material along the inside walls of the fuselage, then add wiring and plumbing.
When the fuselage is ready to move to the next stage of production, an overhead crane located 89 feet (27 meters) above the floor lifts it high into the air and gently places it down into its next position. Here, precision tools are used to install the landing gear and the two wings, making the structure look like a real airplane. At this point, the 737 can roll along the factory floor and take its position in the moving production line.
Boeing: A World of Service for the Boeing 737
While the 787 has had many production delays the 57 day strike did not help much as well as an issue of fastners that they are now dealing with has pushed back delivery even further, the final assembly of this aircraft in S.C. will be no indication of it's quality. In fact a lot of Boeing military and commercial aviation is preduced by non-union labor as well as aerospace and military hardware and done so in a professional manner. The mere fact that these individuals are part of a Union is no indication of the quality of the aircraft of it's future quality.