GM Facts and Fiction

[JRSully]

One of my brother's (pilot at USAIR) got HAMMERED when they went bankrupt. Before Bankruptcy: Salary - around $250-260k, nice pension set up, worked (flew) about 75 hrs/month, retire at 60 AFTER Bankruptcy: making about half of the old salary, THEY COMPLETLY WIPED OUT HIS PENSION (it was way underfunded by the way)replaced it with a piece of garbage retiremint plan that MIGHT be 1/3 of what he would have had when he is ready to retire and now working 90 hrs/month. Pissed off, off course he is, BUT he has adjusted to the cards that were delt him and living with it. His union became totally useless and is still rather useless to this day. He realizes there really is no other work out there in his field to get him back to that money and always thought he was probably paid too much money back then. If the big 3 do not bring labor to at least the same as the counterparts in the South, no amount of money will fix it. The age of "entitlements" is over in organized labor. JMHO

[WILMASBOYL78]

Well....I make my living off the car business, such as it is and these are difficult times!! Today I was at a Saturn client and saw the people in the waiting lounge watching the Congressional Bail Out Show on TV Dealer and consumer confidence is the lowest that I have ever seen....and it will get worse before it gets better.

By the way...where can I sign up for some of this government bail out money

[NovaMob03]

The ability to lease cars cheap has also put a lot of great used cars back on the market. Why buy new when you can own a low mile vehicle for half the cost?
At 54 I have yet to buy a new vehicle...and probably never will

[69 Post Sedan]

If anyone would like to try a "non-skilled" job for a week, try it. It sucks. The company has made it so that there is little time between cars/trucks. It's not like it used to be when they could read a magazine between vehicles. The workers now are getting carpal tunnel at an early age because of the work they do!

As far as wages, the workers have been giving concessions for a couple of contracts now. Their insurance has gone up and coverage has gone down.

Check out and see how much Toyota puts back into the United States education. From what I was told GM puts a lot of money back into the education system and Toyota puts nothing back in!

If they don't get the money, it tells me that Wall Street is more important than Main Street. IMO