Sunday, June 29, 2008

Another episode from "What's Wrong with the American Economy?"

The [American] Axle board has awarded [CEO Dick] Dauch with a whopping $8.5 million bonus -- double what he got last round - bringing his total compensation to $15.7 million for the year.

The board justified the raise by citing Dauch and other managers for their "accomplishments and commitment during a period of significant change in our industry."

from "Pay Cuts Earn Axle CEO Mega-$Million Bonus" by Paul Eisenstein, June 28th, 2008
And these "accomplishments" <--- these are my "sarcastic air quotes" and not my "attribution to an actual source quotes". Anyway, these "accomplishments" include gems like these:
  • Letting the strike linger for 87 days (link)
  • Cutting 2000 workers thru buyouts or layoffs (link)
  • Forcing a 33% pay cut onto the remaining workers (link)
  • And then those remaining, now lower paid workers will see some holidays eliminated and the most senior workers lose one week's vacation (link)
  • GM loses 100,000 production units in the first quarter, which had an estimated pretax loss of $800 million. (link)
  • GM loses 230,000 production units in the second quarter to the tune of a pretax loss of about $1.8 billion (link) after more than 30 plants were affected (link)
If a company can't make a go of things, let them go bankrupt. I admit that the UAW has worked for years to get underworked blue collar workers overpaid and milk the Big Three for all they could. That's why the UAW works for its members and doesn't run the companies.

But, after the pendulum has finished swinging the other way in the automotive world, when no other supplier can be found to provide product at sweat-shop wages, I guess people will figure out you can only get so much blood out of a rock before you end up with a handful of dust.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Dauch needs that bonus. He's got to pay for his housekeeper, ya know!