U.S. AUTO INDUSTRY: More car trouble for America
The Detroit Press - Letters to the Editor.
The Ford buyout plan for its hourly workers is a good deal for the company and the workers opting to accept the plan, but leaders of UAW locals are opposed to the plan ("Ford buyout plan chills UAW locals," Aug. 23). It appears that even though the buyout plan is great for UAW members, it's really all about the UAW and its leaders. They fear extinction and want the leaving workers replaced.
With the U.S. auto industry in a fight for its very life, the UAW, realizing that it is part of the problem, should allow its members to leave while the leaving is good and have the last member leaving just turn off the lights.
Janusz M. Szyszko
Canton
Another $5 plan
While the American economy changed in 1914 and the workforce kept quitting to work for his competitors, Henry Ford solved this problem by paying his workers double the wages he paid the year before, which the other carmakers could not match at that time. Thus he figured it would create a middle class that could afford to buy the cars they were building. Workers came from all across America to settle in Detroit.
Ninety-two years later, Ford's plan for the future is to invest more money in Mexico, leaving the last generation of workers standing in empty factories and warehouses, because the North American Free Trade Agreement allows companies to do so. The media and spokespeople at Ford would have us believe high gas prices and big trucks and SUVs are slurping away North America's shrinking oil supply.
Gas costs over $50 a gallon in Iraq. Is that because they drive Hummers? Ford and its competitors have found new employees in other countries, including Mexico, where you find them working for $5 a day building cars to be sold at a dealership near you.
Brian McNamara
LaSalle, Ontario
Unwanted customers
I am not surprised that the Detroit automobile companies are losing market share. Aside from questions of quality, it appears that they are interested in selling vehicles only to their own employees.
All of the money spent on ads on TV, radio and in the press promote remarkable prices for employees. What about the nonemployee?
The only time that they come to me is in the summer, when they are overstocked. Well, I am not interested at that time. I don't want to be wooed only when it is in the interest of the manufacturer. They need to provide good pricing year-round to everyone.
Elliot Rappaport
West Bloomfield
Why so down on Ford?
Please cut out the negative articles about Ford Motor Co. I really think you would like Ford to go under. What is your problem?
Glenda K. Bruce
Dearborn
Muscle car mistake
So, the Dodge Challenger and the GMC Camaro are "sparking controversy" ("Challenger vs. Camaro?, Aug. 16) and a popular Web site declared: "The muscle car wars are on!" Your article opined that it's nice "to see Detroit automakers bickering again about who has the best muscle car." And people whine about jobs being lost because buyers are choosing too many foreign-made cars.
Detroit and the automakers just can't seem to get it. Gas economy and well-built vehicles trump too much of what Detroit has to offer. Many buyers even give a nod to the environment.
Perhaps if the Bush administration stopped coddling the oil industry and pushed higher mileage standards for U.S. cars, Detroit's cars would look a lot better. In the meantime, Gov. Jennifer Granholm cannot be blamed for the loss of jobs in the car industry.
People should start looking to the real culprit: the car industry itself. Governor wannabe Dick DeVos could change the figures only by dipping into his bottomless pockets and buying up a lot of those cars sitting on dealers' lots.
Jean Barnard
Sterling Heights
An auto celebration
Many who live and work along the Woodward Avenue corridor get upset with the Dream Cruise. That is certainly understandable, considering the congestion, noise and general inconvenience it brings. As difficult as this may be to endure, I would hope that those affected would be as tolerant as possible, because we need this. We need our pride back.
Detroit is often the target for national ridicule. We are branded as the fattest, the angriest, and the most criminal. When there is nothing negative to report about Detroit, nothing about Detroit is reported. But there is one thing no one can deny: We put the world on wheels. We are Detroit. We are the Motor City, and the Dream Cruise is our celebration.
It was the '50s and '60s when cars were fun and life was fun. It's what Detroit was and should be. And for one week in August, it's what it used to be, all over again.
Jeffrey Poling
Troy
