from an article in today's Star-Tribune.
Criticized by some in the past for being hesitant to address the company's problems, Ford management seemed to deliver on that reputation for tentativeness Monday by not naming all of the plants it will close. The hesitation leaves thousands of workers in a fog about their future rather than committed to a new set of goals.
...
Mark Fields, head of Ford's North and South American auto division, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying he wants to create "a sense of crisis, but not panic," arguing that Ford workers will find motivation in fear.
Good God. On a side note, I wonder what the odds are that Mark fucking Fields and his friends are "Bush Pioneers." Ironically, and sadly, I wonder how many of these shit-upon union workers have abandoned their union roots to vote for the tough-guy Republican party: the party of the American Dream (for about 2% of the population).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
6 comments:
The Sith is always present. Where is Yoda when you need him?
He had accrued 800 years of union raises, so they laid him off.
He's still earning 90% pay in his little hut on Dagobah.
That said, Ford sucks. They do, however, need to make their workforce line up with their output and marketshare. They don't need to 'create a sense of crisis, but not panic'. Always easy to say from a comfortable high perch strapped to a golden parachute.
Don't say that Ford sucks around Gibbons. He will think that you are attacking his family. The man is very loyal to mom and pops places of employmnet and past employment.
Screw that. I'll say it to his face anytime any place, and have stats to back it up.
They are a dinosaur that made all of their profit selling gas-guzzling mediocre suv's while the Japanese went about about making better cars that got better gas mileage. They bought Toyota's old hybrid technology because they hadn't bothered to develop their own.
Yeah, I don't really fear that, either. Either of you notice anything about the "big 3" in the last couple of years and how they still just don't seem to get it? Market share continues to dwindle, the waiting list continues to build for the Prius, and what is every single commercial & billboard you see for Chrysler, Ford or GM? Some new V-8 monstrosity being sold on its hauling capacity, towing power, and general bad-assedness. I think two things are at work here:
- Just how I accuse my employer (and all other major "big-box" retailers of trying to make idealized versions of themselves their target customers, the owners of these US car companies project their own love of excess onto Joe America. It works to a certain point, but not obviously all that amazingly well.
- Consistant with being a dinosaur of a business, they continue to operate under the EXTREMELY old business model of getting the customer to want what you're making rather than the other way around. E.g., "We'll make what the hell we're set up to make, and TELL people they want it." That worked until about 1978. Even Augsburg Fortress figured it out in the mid-90s. These guys still haven't.
These Ford execs could burn in an oilfire in Hell for all I care, but I really feel bad for all these factory workers who are hung out to dry when the going gets rough. And for what? Not even totally because they believe it's going to necessarily help their bottom line, but in large because they're trying to make an announcement to stir up Wall Street. Sickening and unbelievable, but the world we live in, nevertheless.
Post a Comment