Another Broken Obama Campaign Promise

[dales]

I purchased this car b/c my good friend had one (sans auto trans) and had no problems.

I'll support Japan.



[and if i had the $$$$$ - Porsche ( they have their issues with ims bearings)]

[Crackpot]

Sub par products? while I generallly agree, just remember it wasn't the UAW workers designing them or setting the QC/QA standards--this was the province of the non-union workers seeking to maximize the return on investment by reducing the costs. Crappy quality was intentionally desinged in, as was short product life.

that's not entirely true throughout the 80's build quality issues had alot to do with the overall quality picture. And the Unions routinely protected people who continually did their jobs on a sub standard fashion. The union protected these people largly as a show of power to the automakers. But as I said in the mid 90's they realised that this policy did nothing but sour public opinion of unions. Esentially Dales isn't wrong about the UAW he's just 20 years out of date.

[dales]

Esentially Dales isn't wrong about the UAW he's just 20 years out of date.

Chrysler Workers Again Caught Smoking & Drinking On the Job — ‘Steps Away’ from Union Hall

Posted on July 14, 2011 at 11:13am by Jonathon M. Seidl



Last September, Fox2 in Detroit uncovered Chrysler workers smoking pot and drinking beer during their breaks. At the time, the plant and Chrysler were outraged and fired the workers. That tough response should have sent a message. But apparently it didn’t. Fox2 has now uncovered more Chrysler workers doing the same exact thing.

“This time our video shows workers a mile from the plant, but just steps away from a United Auto Workers hall,” the outlet reports. “It’s the same kind of problem at a different location with a new method of having a good time; inhaling lunch before finishing a plant shift.”



<snipper>



Chrysler has responded with some harsh words. Scott Garberding, senior vice president of manufacturing, said that as soon as the workers are identified, they would be suspended indefinitely without pay:


“I just want to say I am both hurt and angered over what your cameras captured. Again, we have Chrysler workers in a compromised position, without regard for the impact of their actions, the reputation of their coworkers, the plant, of the company, not to mention their own reputation and that of their families. As a company, in the last two years we’ve come too far and made way too much progress to let the bad actions of a few put a shadow on the rest of the employees. And to be clear, we’ve got a code of conduct at Chrysler and some of the activities that we saw in your video are clearly outside of the code of conduct and unacceptable. The employees that we identify, as soon as we understand who they are, will be suspended indefinitely without pay and anybody else involved will be dealt with swiftly. It’s very frustrating to us, we take it very seriously. We have a lot of very committed folks at Chrysler. We are very proud of our team. We have some folks who apparently do not want to be part of that team.”

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you - UAW people getting loaded on company time.

[Crackpot]

It doen't sound like these people are being protected by the Union does it? Or do you think UAW workers are the only ones getting loaded on the job?

[dales]

Good point.

If I get loaded on my small little job, I'm sh-tcanned in short order - guaranteed.

Now when I arrive at home....................

[Econoline]

Coincidentally, my (89-year-old) mother just got rid of her 1988 Ford Escort--which she purchased brand new in 1988 shortly after my father died. It had around 68,000 actual miles on it, but the air conditioning stopped working and was too expensive to fix. (She sold it to her local handyman for $500; my sister gave her her much newer Toyota Corolla instead of trading that in on the new Subaru she was buying. My mother now says she liked the Escort better than she likes the Corolla.)

[dales]

My late mom had an Escort and she loved the car.

I prolly got one built on a Friday or Monday.

[Rick]

Well Dales a considerable amount of the escort was made in Japan.

Compare it to the Mazda Protege...

[rubato]

Well Dales a considerable amount of the escort was made in Japan.

Compare it to the Mazda Protege...

It was not so much an 'amount' as a certain number of them had transmissions and engines made in Japan. It is a famous example in TQM that the Japanese-made parts had a much smaller distribution of machining tolerances than the US ones did and thus lasted much longer and worked a lot better. And that is a 100% management problem.

GM and Crapler had bad management.

yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

GM did similar stuff with Suzuki...

[Econoline]

The Mazda Protege (323) and the Ford Escort didn't share a platform until 1991; the first-generation Escort (1981-90) was a Ford-only design.

1988 Ford Escort:

[dales]

Well Dales a considerable amount of the escort was made in Japan.

Compare it to the Mazda Protege...

Not that year, during the nineties they were.

My lemon was 100% Made in the USA.

[Rick]

Well Dales console yersef with the fact that it wasn't a K car...

[dales]

or a FIAT

[Econoline]

...or a Peugeot.

(I actually owned one of those for a while back in the '70s. Somebody gave it to me for free)

[Lord Jim]

Or a Yugo...

[Econoline]

I almost said Yugo, but then I remembered that the Yugo was actually just a cheaper, Yugoslavian-made version of the Fiat 127.