While Thrasher doesn't seem to be interested I think that sounds like something I'd like to know.
It's actually quite a laundry list and in theory I'm supposed to be working, so I'll probably break it into multiple posts over a period of time.
Let me preface the whole thing with fair disclosure—I never even visited a boardroom of the Big 3, nor have I spent any quality time with the national UAW guys. I have had the opportunity to sit in on portions of a local union contract negotiation, which was very enlightening. I'm definitely "filling in the blanks" on some of the motivations of the muckity-mucks, but I can safely share the "resulting realities" that came out of those motivations. My personal politics are pretty well known here; however, regardless of what Thrasher might try and paint me with, I am not specifically anti-union. I do believe that the unions (both automotive and otherwise) have badly overstepped their role in the past 3 decades or so (and management has allowed that to happen) but that does not mean that they have *no* role. Since this discussion is going to get novel-esque anyway, I will probably not take the time to dig up supporting links. I'm confident that every claim I will make could be readily documented given time and enthusiasm, and I will try to flag any conjectures as such. So, that's a picture of your source and you may draw conclusions as you wish.
First off, I'd like to show why some of the stuff Thrasher mentioned (and the media reports) is simply not correct.
Let's start with the fuel efficiency thing first. Popular perception is that the Big 3 chose not to produce fuel efficient cars. This is simply not true. You have to look at how the government chooses to regulate thru CAFE standards to get a deeper understanding of what's going on. CAFE is based on total sales. So, if Uncle Sam says that the regulation is 30mpg that means that you take all the Cadillacs times 10mpg and all the Malibus at 25mgp and all the Geo Metros at 45mpg, factor in sales of each, and determine a corporate-wide average. (side note- I'm pretty sure that things like pickups and SUVs are not included in the CAFE calculations, which was a motivator to push more customers into those vehicles) The game the car companies play is to try and sell enough of the Metros to pull up the average on the stuff that people actually want to buy. I don't intend to delve into the merits, or lack thereof, of CAFE as that gets a lot more subjective; we'll just work with "what" it is and ignore the "why" and not even touch the "should it".
Now, let's take a look at a specific case study, the Ford Taurus from the late 80's and early 90's. Wildly popular car, best selling vehicle nation-wide for something like 6 years running, decent but not great gas mileage, excellent quality ratings (as good or better than the Japanese competition at the time), roomy without being a boat, reasonably sized drivetrain to have a little "pop" that Americans demand, affordable price for what you got. Ford was not making a huge profit on them, but they *were* making money, particularly given the massive volume and all the efficiencies that go with that. Ford cancelled the Taurus at the end of its cycle (models generally go on 3 year production cycles—they get minor cosmetic tweaks each year, but the significant revisions to drivetrain and/or styling nearly always happen every 3 or 4 years) even though it was the #1 selling vehicle the final year. Why would a company kill a profitable vehicle? Stupid management? No. Stupid union? No. In this case, it's stupid government.
Bottom line, Ford was selling so damn many Tauruses (Tauri?) that they couldn't meet the CAFE. Customers that might buy a cheaper fuel-efficient crackerbox (
which Ford did produce during the Taurus years, originally as the Escort—which actually wasn't a bad car, but I digress) could afford the more roomy and more sporty Taurus and so they did. En mass. The Taurus got decent gas mileage, but less than the CAFE standard, which IIRC actually increased (making the problem worse) right around the time the Taurus was killed. The popularity of the model concentrated Ford's overall sales too much. The only way for Ford to meet the CAFE was to eliminate a profitable and wildly popular vehicle and "scatter" those sales among the rest of their offerings—basically force those Escort buyers back into their Escorts (with some also being pushed the other direction into luxury models that got worse gas mileage).
It's a bad business decision from start to finish. Ford lost the model (and keep in mind that a lot of those happy Ford customers, when forced to change, became Honda Civic and Toyota Camry customers instead of Ford Escort customers). 2 assembly factories worth of American union employees that were making money hand-over-fist with all the overtime they were willing to work, as well as all the thousands and thousands of US workers (although not truly "Made in the USA", the Taurus had very high domestic content compared to industry averages of the time) in the supplier chain associated with it—many of those union as well—were spooled down until they could be redirected to other models that weren't selling as well.
Management loses. Union loses. Customers lose. All to a number baked up in Washington. Now, like I said, we could have a whole seperate discussion on whether the CAFE was the "right" thing to do—that's really irrelevant to this particular topic. Ford gets tarred for making bad business decisions. They certainly didn't want to make this business decision. Ford gets tarred for not making fuel efficient cars. They DID make them, but people chose not to buy them. The popular excuses to hammer the Big 3, as dutifully spouted by our dear Thrasher, simply does not line up with the reality of the situation.
Next up, let's take on the unions.
