Yeah, I'm all for buying American. No matter how greedy people think unions are you can't deny Mexican labor is way cheaper than paying us Americans minimum wage even. I'm all for unionization. I was on my way to earning a card in our local stage hands union until I gave up the career for more steady work. It just seems like whenever the US vs. foreign conversation comes up someone always have to blame our various unions. If there is anyone we should blame it should be us the consumer before the unions. I'm sure at least half of us are members or former members of a union or have or had family that are parts of unions. Unions help keep this country going strong but someone always has to bash them.

 

Was part of a union long ago, best relief was to get out of it. Unions were important, however I don't believe they still are. Too many rules put in place that are specifically to overpay someone to do a job that can be done for a lesser rate.

Yep, mexican labor is cheaper, so is chineese, indian, pakistan, etc. etc. etc. But so is the cost of living. In mainland china, 4 people can go out of for a nice dinner for about $20 US, and if you eat on the cheap, a noodle soup supper with a beer is about 75 cents.

These countries are changing though, In Malaysia 15 yrs ago, it was a huge deal to own a car, most got around on mopeds. Nowadays, cars are as common as the 405 in So Cal, and their roads aren't up to snuff to handle them. Wages have gone up, consumer spending is way up, and guess what, jobs are leaving for cheaper sources. Same thing happened to Hong Kong, most of the mfg jobs moved to mainland. Mainland China has the government to thank for the consistantly low wages, but even there things are changing, finding & keeping workers has become more difficult as shops open up all over the place.

One of the reasons that the asian car companies build here is because the import duties on the bigger more expensive cars elimnates the cost savings of using cheaper labor, so they put in a factory in a location that has low labor rates in the US, and save the import fees.

 

Until GM can get clear of all their “legacy” issues they will have to be more aggressive with every other element of cost. In other words, they have to get their parts cheaper than Toyota to be able to compete. Think of all the layoffs GM has done over the last 20 years. Compare the size of the workforce then to now. They have roughly 330,000 employees today, and according to Business Week, had over 800,000 in the mid ‘80s. That is a lot of people to still be paying for (benefits and the like) with a very small workforce today. Toyota? They keep growing and growing…

No wonder Toyota can be more flexible with their parts sourcing.

 

Didn't miss it, just ignored it. USA Today is famous for their quotes taken out of context, and so are you

 

The quote was not taken from USA today thank you!!! Read the article again. The USA Today article actually gave higher domestic content credit to the HHR than GM's Vice President of Global Purchasing did.
It's funny and sad that you haven't liked me since I first joined and stated my case about my paint job.