HallSlug.com

Archive for the ‘Detroit’ Category

Ford Offers Buyouts to All UAW Workers

 DETROIT, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) said on
Monday it is offering its 41,000 U.S. factory workers buyouts
and early retirement offers in a bid to reduce its payroll
costs as it aims to return to profit by 2011.

 The buyouts mark the second round of such offers for Ford
workers represented by the United Auto Workers union this year.
About 1,000 workers took Ford's earlier offer in July.

 While Ford was the only U.S. automaker to have avoided
bankruptcy in the past year, its relative success has
complicated efforts to win concessions from its major union.

 Ford workers have until late January to accept the offer,
which includes payouts of up to $70,000 cash for newer hires to
$60,000 cash for veterans already eligible for retirement.

 "Despite a strengthening in our business, we still have a
surplus in employees," said Ford spokesman Mark Truby.

 Ford did not provide a target for how many workers it
expected would take the buyout offers.

Can Detroit Be Saved?

Dave Bing has just signed on to four years of maybe the most futile and thankless job in America: mayor of Detroit. What in the world was he thinking?

“I wouldn’t have taken this job if this wasn’t doable,” he says. “I finished basketball in 1978, then went into my own business in 1980 and did it for 29 years. . . . Now I get to the end of that career and probably should have retired. But there was a calling greater than anything that I ever envisioned, and that was to help bring this city back.”

In November, 57% of the Detroit voters bought into his tough-love reform agenda. Mr. Bing replaced the disgraced Kwame Kilpatrick, who went to jail earlier this year for spending city funds on his girlfriends—just the publicity boost the city already flat on its back didn’t need.

Dave Bing is no Milton Friedman when it comes to economic solutions. He’s praying for lots of federal aid to help the city pull out of its ditch, he wants to borrow against future tax revenues, and he hasn’t ruled out tax increases “if they have a sunset” to pay the city’s bills. He believes it’s a core responsibility of government to help people.

Yet Mr. Bing is a realist, something Detroit hasn’t had at the helm for a long time. “We’ve been paralyzed by a culture in the city of Detroit, and maybe the state of Michigan, of entitlement,” by which he means ever-rising union wages. “Our people, I don’t believe, truly understand how dire the situation is. There are ugly decisions that need to be made and I’m surely not going to be popular for making them. But I didn’t take this job based on popularity.”

One group that surely isn’t a fan is the public employee unions. He grumbles that there are 17 unions with over 50 separate bargaining units. “I can give you a data sheet that will show you we’ve got several of those bargaining units with less than 100 people, and each one of them has a president that’s paid by the city to negotiate against the city,” he says. “Coming from the private sector, I find that insane.”

The mayor is quick to remind me that he is not antiunion. He joined the NBA players association in the late 1960s and hired a mostly unionized workforce at his firm, Bing Steel. But for months he has been locked in tedious negotiations and the aggravation is starting to show.

“The problem for the most part,” he argues, “is poor union leadership. I think the rank-and-file aren’t being told the truth. And I’m not going to B.S. anybody. I’m going to tell them the truth. They can’t continue to ride this gravy train forever.”

He poses this question to the city workforce: “Are you better off having a job and making 90% of what you’re at today or having no job at all? To me, you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to say I’ll take that 90%.”

Could Detroit be the first major city in America to actually declare bankruptcy, I ask hesitantly. His honesty surprises me: “I hope not, but I wouldn’t rule it out if we don’t get concessions from the unions.” He may be using the threat of bankruptcy, which is a poison pill for unions, as a bargaining chip. “This would void all the city contracts,” he insists. “That means workers have to make a decision: Do you want to start with zero, or do you want to start from where you are and give up just a little bit? Under bankruptcy you start with zero.” Mr. Bing is a hardliner.

“We have to be honest with ourselves and say we’re no longer going to be the motor capital or the manufacturing capital of the world,” Mr. Bing says. “But I think we can be the entertainment capital of the Midwest. We have casinos, great hotel accommodations, great restaurants, we’re one of the few cities that has every professional sports team.

End of the Line for Pontiac Assembly Plant

This year, thousands of Michigan families are losing their jobs with the Big Three automakers and their suppliers. On Tuesday alone, Pontiac Assembly Center, the last assembly line in the scrappy capital seat of Oakland County, built its last truck. It is one of seven factories that General Motors expects to close in Michigan by late next year.

Once anchoring a complex where more than 14,000 people worked, Pontiac Assembly’s line is the last of dozens that once included Pontiac Motors, Fisher Body, Pontiac Truck & Bus and others in the community since the early 1900s.

He truly is the spirit of Detroit

Music Videos – Kid Rock – American Badass (Uncensored)

Michigan Unemployment Up to New Record 15.2%

Michigan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in June rose one and one-tenth percentage points to 15.2 percent, according to data released Wednesday by the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth.

The total number of unemployed in the state reached 740,000 in June, the highest monthly total in Michigan’s current official series dating back to 1976. June’s unemployment rate was highest for the state since May 1983.