IT'S PEOPLE NOT IDEAS

Any business problem in our economy is always, at its core, about the people involved in it. And by that I don't mean only the leadership, I mean the grunts, both corporate and labor. I was once in top management in a company that fell on hard times and I couldn't bring myself to fire either my friends or the people near the bottom, all of whom were resposible for my success. I had to leave.

The guys in the UAW hate GM and Ford, look upon them as the enemy, and their jobs as an entitlement, one they know they don't deserve. None of them can get jobs in their "skill level" outside the car companies. My very first job after the Military was in an employment agency that was near two GM plants. The union called a strike that everyone knew might last as long as six months, so a lot of GM workers were looking for work. Surprise! Not a single GM tool and dye maker, skilled machinist, or welder was employable anywhere in the local economy.

Think about that. A tool and die maker is the cream of the labor pool; a tool maker is the Rembrandt of the labor market. I was in an area where a skilled welder could start at $35 an hour, but skilled welders in the private sector had to work to tolerances unknown in the car business; the same with lathe operators and sheet metal men. So even the most highly skilled people were totally without real marketable skills, something each and every one of them learned back then and still know now. So what the UAW members are faced with is certain death no matter what the company does. What the UAW is doing is very human, they are trying to live just one more day.

The suits upstairs are actually human beings too, with feelings and concerns for their families and themselves. The suits are faced with the problem I faced: fire your friends, the people who are responsible for your position and salary within the company; fire the people in the automobile "town" of salesmen, dealers, engineers, designers and so on. Just like me, they can't do it either. Even worse, they know that losing a job in the protected auto business is the end of life as they know it.

Another way to look at it is that the dinosaurs are plum out of food. Period.