D Day for Holden

[juc33_prado Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close juc33_prado]

Yep, know mates who competed in the Alpine Rally in Victoria - sad that they had to retire due to a bent frame rails (metal fatigue), as they climbed from 30th to top 10 before retiring!

thats a hard retirement, you can't expect that normally, like you would with suspension, tyre or engine issues...

[cfryback Find all posts View Profile Close cfryback]

thats a hard retirement, you can't expect that normally, like you would with suspension, tyre or engine issues...

Considering that there was significant effort into hand building the engine and driveline.

Saw the front guard pictures, yeah boys are gutted - but let the welding begin!

[cfryback Find all posts View Profile Close cfryback]

But anyways, back on topic - award wages and unions haven't helped the issue.

[Richoson Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Richoson]

Piece of cake

Holden also make the Cruze in Adelaide.

Cheers Andrew

AJ is pretty handy with a shovel on the beach as well

Richo.

[MickL Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close MickL]

award wages and unions haven't helped the issue.

Ditto, I know a few workers there, $27 plus an hour to screw on wheel nuts is pretty good for un-skilled labour. Mechanical trades in the mid to high thirty dollar mark.

Last government handout and the unions went straight for a 6% pay rise. Mind you the management style leaves me scratching my head too, also straight after the last hand out $20 million went out to sponsor rugby and even more to AFL.

If the government drops $150 million on a company then I think we the taxpayer should own part of it and have a say in how it's spent.

[photoprado Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close photoprado]

Seems part of the problem was the Federal Government's handling of Holden.

Read this: http://www.afr.com/p/national/govern...3lse6cNIradzzI

Emanating from the federal government were two entirely different sets of instructions to General Motors Holden.

One, from Prime Minister Tony Abbott, his deputy, Warren Truss and Hockey was that the government had already made up its mind: Holden would not get any more money and had to announce immediately whether it was staying or going.

The contrasting view came from Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, the bloke whose job it was to manage the issue.

He told everyone – his own side included – that the government should not make a decision until March when the Productivity Commission inquiry into automotive assistance reports.

Then Holden would know the government’s position towards further assistance, enabling it to decide whether to stay or go.

The government was clearly divided and the process became a shambles.

As SA Premier Jay Weatherill said: “The Feds asked Holden to delay a decision about their future pending the Productivity Commission report. Now they bag them for delaying a decision about their future.’’

For most of this year, the government knew what Holden wanted in order to stay.

Holden, like everyone else, factored in that the Coalition was going to win the federal election so sought commitments from the Coalition when it was in Opposition.

In the unlikely event that Labor won the election, Holden would have stayed. Labor was promising $1.5 billion in industry assistance between now and 2015 and $300 million a year after that.

The Coalition said only that it would strip $500 million from that pre-2015 funding and it had a nebulous commitment to $200 million a year for five years between 2015-2020.

The formula was simple and unambiguous. Holden told the Coalition that whatever it decided, it would need that decision by Christmas so it could forward plan. It was not an ultimatum per se, just a clinical business decision.

If the government were unwilling to keep funding Holden, it would have to relocate.

The government refused to give Holden an answer. It commissioned a Productivity Commission inquiry instead that would not report until March 2014.

And now the government is solemn and supposedly concerned that the GM board in Detroit has decided to go. The government thought Holden was bluffing. Clearly it was not.

It was a bizarre way to conduct business with a multinational.

Before we get all tetchy about the wages paid to Auto workers, consider this:

[photoprado Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close photoprado]

And the REAL reason Holden (and Ford) are pulling out of manufacturing in Australia:



Embarrassingly simple. They aren't building the cars people want. Together, Falcon and Commodore account for around 44,000 vehicles per year in a market of a million vehicles a year. If you strip out the non-passenger vehicles it's still over 500,000 vehicles a year and they aren't even selling 10% of it.

You can't turn organisations like these around quickly, but the truth is the market has been sending the message to both companies for decades. They have not been listening, and they are still trying to sell us the vehicles they want us to buy, not the vehicles we want to buy.

Why should they get government support for that management catastrophe.

[Danda Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Danda]

And the REAL reason Holden (and Ford) are pulling out of manufacturing in Australia:



Embarrassingly simple. They aren't building the cars people want. Together, Falcon and Commodore account for around 44,000 vehicles per year in a market of a million vehicles a year. If you strip out the non-passenger vehicles it's still over 500,000 vehicles a year and they aren't even selling 10% of it.

You can't turn organisations like these around quickly, but the truth is the market has been sending the message to both companies for decades. They have not been listening, and they are still trying to sell us the vehicles they want us to buy, not the vehicles we want to buy.

Why should they get government support for that management catastrophe.

Spot on, change is inevitable in all things and if you dont change to suit , you die a death, look at most all of Europe you can count on the fingers of one hand how many large cars there are , it's all about consumption now, getting from A to B as fast and as cheaply as possible, the most sought after cars there are the Golf GTI T/D extremely fast and runs on the sniff of a rag and I really believe till we can find an alternative to fuel thats the way we will go to..............

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

I am in the bush, but if you look around here and then take away the twin cabs, the SUV's and the buzz boxes there isn't much left! The family sedan is a dinosaur in this day and age, pity Holden and Ford didn't see that long ago.

Of course Nissan and Mitsubishi who made smaller cars both closed before Ford and Holden, so not sure even a better model range could have saved them.

Cheers Andrew

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

I can see it now - we'll be trading in our Prados for a Holden/Ford/Toyota badged Hyundai full auto selectable 2WD/4WD with twin turbo V6 diesel and 7 speed auto. It will have full electrics, 12 month service intervals and auto cup cooler/warmers. The bonnet will have anti tamper locks so you sneaky bastards can't do any mods or chuck in a second battery. It will also come with soft suspension and space saver spare so you won't be doing much "off road" travel. The roof will be so thin that you won't be able to chuck on a roof-rack and the front will be all plastic so no ARB bull bar either. Yes, that's change for you. Who's in?

[craigm Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close craigm]

Yes, that's change for you. Who's in?

Ehmmmm PASS...

[MidLifeCrisis Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close MidLifeCrisis]

But anyways, back on topic - award wages and unions haven't helped the issue.

I was informed, but havent been able to confirm that union members were paid over twice their equivelents in the business community. Example, accounts girl on 85k. Now, these types of figures are a great effort by the unions, good on them! Servng their members, ensuring members et the very best in remuneration and protection.
HOWEVER, If this is true, they they jus need to satnd up and take responsibilty for the utter crap they created and acknowledge this uncommercial bullshit was never going to last. Again I have NOT been able to confirm this despite it coming from a relaible source.

[cfryback Find all posts View Profile Close cfryback]

Unions were a good thing, until labor laws got up to where they are now.

Been a member of three unions (one in Canada, but that was a union shop - no choice).

Unions are really good at a couple of things:

1) Collecting dues
2) Acting like seagulls over littlest things (same as a seagull manager - fly in, squawk loudly, poop on everything and fly away)

So now that there are imminent job losses, I haven't heard of any union stepping up to assist members with, support (sorry, news grabs don't count).

[mjrandom Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close mjrandom]

The Holden Enterprise Agreement is available to download from the Fairwork website. That gives the minimums and general conditions and I have seen plenty of people show how the minimum numbers are pretty much in touch with the rest of the manufacturing industries. This doesn't tell you what people are actually paid though. I too have heard some stories of hardship pay, loss of overtime pay, etc etc. I have also heard that no one is paid the minimum rates so make what you will of the information. It would be nice to see what the breakdown in operating costs are as a percentage to see where wages fall.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

If we want to talk about overpaid workers for GM or probably just about any other company / industry that you care to look at then lets look at the pay of the executives! These are the guys who made the decisions that ultimately led to the falling sales that are in reality the reason for the place closing, if they were flat out building cars they would keep the place going.

Now I don't know what the execs are being paid, but I guarantee you its way more than the guy on the factory floor. When they make a stuff up like continuing to build cars that people don't want; and when it doesn't work out the poor blue collar worker not only gets the short end of the stick, it also seems that they are now getting blamed for the problems of Holden. In the mean time the execs will award them selves a multi million dollar bonus for doing such a great job and go and buy another yacht to water ski behind.

Cheers Andrew