GM packing its bags in Oshawa

[bush_cheney2004]

4 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

They’re already in the US, employing Americans.  I wouldn’t focus on assembly, which is often the low tech end of production.  The big engineering is in the engines and transmissions, fuel and emissions systems...

 

Oh...so there really are no Canadian owned auto assembly plants in the USA...just lower tier suppliers to the American and other foreign owned makes.   Thought so....

[Zeitgeist]

1 minute ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

...and are they never allowed to close a U.S. plant and idle workers because it would be so damaging to the "middle class" ?

Why do you turn this into a Canada versus US thing?  I don’t care which country houses the head offices, as long as auto jobs exist in the markets where people buy autos.  We buy plenty of autos. Too many jobs are disappearing.  

[bush_cheney2004]

Just now, Zeitgeist said:

Why do you turn this into a Canada versus US thing?  I don’t care which country houses the head offices, as long as auto jobs exist in the markets where people buy autos.  We buy plenty of autos. Too many jobs are disappearing.  

 

Too bad...easy come...easy go.

Canada exports more automotive to the USA than vice-versa....that's why this is a thang.

[Zeitgeist]

Just now, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Oh...so there really are no Canadian owned auto assembly plants in the USA...just lower tier suppliers to the American and other foreign owned makes.   Thought so....

Read posts.  Many of your right to work plants are just final assembly snap together kits.  You should know all this.  The Japanese are masters of keeping the highly engineered parts production jobs and putting big box assembly plants in the US that don’t do much tech. 

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

Read posts.  Many of your right to work plants are just final assembly snap together kits.  You should know all this.  The Japanese are masters of keeping the highly engineered parts production jobs and putting big box assembly plants in the US that don’t do much tech. 

 

It's not just the Japanese...it's the Koreans and Germans too....with new assembly plants in the USA...more than in Canada, which is down to eight.

 

[Wilber]

19 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Great....when can I expect a Magna owned auto assembly plant to be built in the USA....say in Tennessee ?

 

 

Why? Most expensive steel and aluminum in the world and Trump's tariff wars are making exports more difficult.

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, Wilber said:

Why? Most expensive steel and aluminum in the world and Trump's tariff wars are making exports more difficult.

 

Right...because if not for Trump's tariffs...there would be many Canadian car makes with final assembly plants in places like Tennessee...for sure.

[bush_cheney2004]

Another GM Oshawa sob story from one of the organized labour faithful...Denmark has the answer !

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-general-motors-decision-isnt-just-business-to-oshawa-its/

[Wilber]

41 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Right...because if not for Trump's tariffs...there would be many Canadian car makes with final assembly plants in places like Tennessee...for sure.

Whatever, still no reason for Magna to build one.

[bush_cheney2004]

2 minutes ago, Wilber said:

Whatever, still no reason for Magna to build one.

 

That works too....if Trump has made conditions so unfavourable for Magna...so has the brilliant leadership in Ontario/Canada made conditions quite poor for competitive auto production (e.g. energy costs, labour costs, taxes, etc.)

[bush_cheney2004]

As expected...the Canadian pity pot battle has been enjoined again....Maritimes vs. Ontario vs. Alberta.

 

Quote

Amid the wall-to-wall coverage of the GM news, University of Calgary economist Ron Kneebone struck a nerve on social media with a cheeky reality check, noting that Alberta's total job losses at one point during the recession amounted to "the equivalent of 2.96 GM plants every month."

"Just sayin'," Kneebone added.

Mike Moffatt, of the Ivey Business School in London, Ont., felt compelled to reply with some data of his own, pointing out how much Ontarians have suffered through the decline of manufacturing, more generally, over the past couple of decades.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-oshawa-jobs-gm-general-motors-layoffs-1.4923771

 

[taxme]

On ‎11‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 6:06 PM, Centerpiece said:

Never a peep about the fact that Toyota and Honda workers are not unionized in spite of Unifor trying for years. They just go about their business.

Ford seems to be doing ok in Canada. They never took any handouts back in the 80's. 

[taxme]

On ‎11‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 3:19 PM, Machjo said:

Cut welfare and many would stop coming, right? Again, the problem is not with immigration.

Put a moratorium on immigration altogether and there will be no more new immigrants coming too Canada. Works for me. 

If immigration is supposed to be so great then why is unemployment so high in Canada and why are there hundreds of thousands of Canadians on welfare programs, including legal and illegal so-called refugees? Immigration "IS" the problem. 

[bush_cheney2004]

28 minutes ago, taxme said:

If immigration is supposed to be so great then why is unemployment so high in Canada and why are there hundreds of thousands of Canadians on welfare programs, including legal and illegal so-called refugees? Immigration "IS" the problem. 

 

Based on what I can find, it looks like EI payments in Canada are more of a permanent fixture and part of the system for chronic unemployment/underemployment.   Historically, this has been true for the Maritimes since the bottom fell out.

EI recipients have dropped, but still total almost 500,000.     Maybe immigration drives part of this number ?

[cannuck]

20 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Oh...so there really are no Canadian owned auto assembly plants in the USA...just lower tier suppliers to the American and other foreign owned makes.   Thought so....

Uh..the LARGEST outsource subassembly supplier on the planet is hardly "lower tier".   BTW: which US "Big 3" manufactures cars for Jaguar and BMW??   Yeah, just what I thought - all "lower tier" manufacturers/assemblers.

[bush_cheney2004]

29 minutes ago, cannuck said:

Uh..the LARGEST outsource subassembly supplier on the planet is hardly "lower tier".   BTW: which US "Big 3" manufactures cars for Jaguar and BMW??   Yeah, just what I thought - all "lower tier" manufacturers/assemblers.

 

I think you misunderstood my response....and unless things have changed dramatically in the past 10 years....the N.A. automotive sector has three basic Tiers or levels of manufacturing to OEMs and parts integration.  All I was saying is that if Magna is not a Tier 1 manufacturer, it must be a lower Tier.   If Magna is Tier 1, that's great.

..and I think Denso and Bosch are bigger than Magna.

Edited November 30, 2018 by bush_cheney2004

[cannuck]

Tier 1, just not in NA.  I believe the issue is not competing directly with their customers at home.

While the yanks were going tits up and taking massive bailouts, Johnny Canuck was raking it in hand over fist.

Edited November 30, 2018 by cannuck

[bush_cheney2004]

1 hour ago, cannuck said:

Tier 1, just not in NA.  I believe the issue is not competing directly with their customers at home.

While the yanks were going tits up and taking massive bailouts, Johnny Canuck was raking it in hand over fist.

 

Which is also consistent with Magna closing down plants in Canada and expanding elsewhere.

I am old and remember many car makes that no longer exist...formats abandoned (e.g. station wagons)...plants closed forever.    What has happened many times before can and will happen again...nothing special about GM or the Oshawa plant.   Millions of people in Canada and the USA have lost their jobs from plant closings and have soldiered on, because they really have no other choice.   This too will pass.....

[Machjo]

5 hours ago, taxme said:

Put a moratorium on immigration altogether and there will be no more new immigrants coming too Canada. Works for me. 

If immigration is supposed to be so great then why is unemployment so high in Canada and why are there hundreds of thousands of Canadians on welfare programs, including legal and illegal so-called refugees? Immigration "IS" the problem. 

Again, the problem is not with immigration but with the welfare programs. More immigrants means more consumers. do you really want to deprive the Canadian economy of a larger consumer base?

[cannuck]

7 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Which is also consistent with Magna closing down plants in Canada and expanding elsewhere.

I am old and remember many car makes that no longer exist...formats abandoned (e.g. station wagons)...plants closed forever.    What has happened many times before can and will happen again...nothing special about GM or the Oshawa plant.   Millions of people in Canada and the USA have lost their jobs from plant closings and have soldiered on, because they really have no other choice.   This too will pass.....

People in general don't understand how dynamic ANY business and market is.  Look elsewhere and read on this forum about how the oil business is a formula to cruise to easy wealth.   So, go out and buy a small production company pulling WY asphaltic sour out of the ground, at a cost of near $30 a bbl. and watch the cash roll in when you sell it at the posted price at the wellhead of $1.29/bbl.  GM was once (WAAAAY back when I was in the retail end of car biz) one of the top three franchises to make you big bux with (Caterpillar, McDonalds and GM).  Impossible to imagine then that GM go bankrupt in my lifetime and IBM would go from dominating the world of computing to a mere shadow of its former self.  No one single factor wiped out GM, but no question the union contracts played a huge part.  What nobody bothers to mention is that GM management SIGNED those contracts in the first place.  Companies that size are similar to a very large ship.  Once you tell it to do something, it can take a VERY long time for it to respond and once on that new course, you will not be able to stop or turn before hitting something you did not foresee (I call that "capital inertia" and is why big companies are such easy targets for sharp entrepreneurs to aim at as competitors).

What GM is doing may seem a catastrophe for narrow minded observers, but what Ford already did and GM will follow is to re-configure their company to survive.   Yes, I think they are going the wrong way, but it is not my company to run.  The problem on the Canadian side of the border is that we have really only one major export business - cars and car parts.   Unlike the US, where entrepreneurs can easily finance new business since the marketplace,  infrastructure and culture to do that is in place, once you leave the car biz, there is no other place to go.   Our lack of value added manufacturing diversity is the real issue - otherwise everyone should be excited to be able to pick up GM facilities, equipment and people for pennies on the dollar to do something else.

[cannuck]

6 hours ago, Machjo said:

Again, the problem is not with immigration but with the welfare programs. More immigrants means more consumers. do you really want to deprive the Canadian economy of a larger consumer base?

An immigrant can only be a consumer if they have money to spend.  If they arrive penniless and don't have appropriate job and language skills, they will only buy what the tax man gives them money to consume.  That is why the idiotic idea of taking in as much of the bottom of Middle East, Africa and Carib barrel is bound to go bad in a very big way.

Now I had that entire rant without once mentioning Indian truck drivers - aren't you proud of me?

Edited November 30, 2018 by cannuck

[Thinkinoutsidethebox]

Somebody should tell Jerry Dias what the middle finger means, it's exactly what GM is doing 

Ah the joys of foreign investment, let someone in, invest a bit, take profits and resources then abandon the locals when it's all dried up. 

They are not going to shut the plant down without a fight? What are they going to do? Chop their wages in half, eliminate the union? 

Edited November 30, 2018 by Thinkinoutsidethebox

[Machjo]

4 hours ago, cannuck said:

An immigrant can only be a consumer if they have money to spend.  If they arrive penniless and don't have appropriate job and language skills, they will only buy what the tax man gives them money to consume.  That is why the idiotic idea of taking in as much of the bottom of Middle East, Africa and Carib barrel is bound to go bad in a very big way.

Now I had that entire rant without once mentioning Indian truck drivers - aren't you proud of me?

Again, that comes down to the problem being the welfare system, not immigration.

[Zeitgeist]

9 hours ago, cannuck said:

People in general don't understand how dynamic ANY business and market is.  Look elsewhere and read on this forum about how the oil business is a formula to cruise to easy wealth.   So, go out and buy a small production company pulling WY asphaltic sour out of the ground, at a cost of near $30 a bbl. and watch the cash roll in when you sell it at the posted price at the wellhead of $1.29/bbl.  GM was once (WAAAAY back when I was in the retail end of car biz) one of the top three franchises to make you big bux with (Caterpillar, McDonalds and GM).  Impossible to imagine then that GM go bankrupt in my lifetime and IBM would go from dominating the world of computing to a mere shadow of its former self.  No one single factor wiped out GM, but no question the union contracts played a huge part.  What nobody bothers to mention is that GM management SIGNED those contracts in the first place.  Companies that size are similar to a very large ship.  Once you tell it to do something, it can take a VERY long time for it to respond and once on that new course, you will not be able to stop or turn before hitting something you did not foresee (I call that "capital inertia" and is why big companies are such easy targets for sharp entrepreneurs to aim at as competitors).

What GM is doing may seem a catastrophe for narrow minded observers, but what Ford already did and GM will follow is to re-configure their company to survive.   Yes, I think they are going the wrong way, but it is not my company to run.  The problem on the Canadian side of the border is that we have really only one major export business - cars and car parts.   Unlike the US, where entrepreneurs can easily finance new business since the marketplace,  infrastructure and culture to do that is in place, once you leave the car biz, there is no other place to go.   Our lack of value added manufacturing diversity is the real issue - otherwise everyone should be excited to be able to pick up GM facilities, equipment and people for pennies on the dollar to do something else.

Canada has quite a diverse manufacturing sector and plenty of high tech.  We have a challenge with scale.  Our successful mid-sized businesses tend to get bought out.  Big Canadian companies do this too, buying out smaller fish, but there are fewer big companies that can do this than in larger countries.  Because there are few larger players, there can be less competition (think of Rogers and Bell in telecom).   The really touchy areas in North America are the traditionally big industrial employers: autos, prefabricated building materials, aircraft, trains, electrical components and appliances, etc.  Canada lost McDonnell Douglas and De Haviland, but those were multi-nationals.  Bombardier is a big made in Canada company that produces trains, planes, subways, recreational vehicles, and so forth, yet companies and whole countries have fought its exports.  The US ignored WTO judgements and moved against Bombardier, which then had to sell of its passenger jet division to an EU company.  Quebecor, Thompson, and many other big Canadian companies are managing, and we live in a competitive marketplace where companies live and die all the time.  I would not equate GM, however, with most of these other companies.  The stakes are too high for workers and whole economies to let unnecessary collapses happen.  GM is too integrated with government and the wider Canadian and US economies to be permitted to slash thousands of workers while corporate is making massive profits.  No.  We need policies that impact auto makers' sales when they attempt to slash workforces in a period of rising profits.  To do any less is irresponsible.  Don't give a shit about GM CEO's automation, globally competitive, EV plan.  There are more important plans needed to protect decent living standards.  

Edited November 30, 2018 by Zeitgeist

[bush_cheney2004]

6 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

... GM is too integrated with government and the wider Canadian and US government to be permitted to slash thousands of workers while corporate is making massive profits.  No.  We need policies that impact auto makers' sales when they attempt to slash workforces in a period of rising profits.  To do any less is irresponsible.  Don't give a shit about GM CEO's automation, globally competitive, EV plan.  There are more important plans needed to protect decent living standards.  

 

No...this ignores economic reality.   GM should not be forced to operate plants and produce products that have dwindling sales just because highly paid auto workers want to keep the party going.    These auto sector jobs, like many others before them...are going...going...gone.