How Brazil Builds Cars

I recently sent this video to a friend of mine who is about 180 degrees out of sync with my way of seeing the problem that Unionization has wreaked on the auto industry. He disagrees and says the people in the South working for non-union car manufacturing, are selling out their brothers in Detroit. Well, that is not exactly what he says, but is my loose interpretation of his words. He says the workers in the video below are clones or drones or zombies that have no life. I see the plant workers as pretty much posing for the camera, but the plant is there in full view and it looks to me to be an ideal way to make cars. In fact, I expect Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and BMW in the Southern US, would be similar and the workers would be happy in what my friend would describe as miserable wages and licking the boots of the corporation. What is true, is that 90% of the profits go to Japan, Germany, etc, whereas most of the profits from Detroit's Big Three stay in the US with its stockholders. But, then, we know how well unionized American companies are doing. In fairness, all automakers are taking it in the shorts along with the rest of the economy.

One look at this and you will be able to tell why there could probably never be another Big Three assembly plant built in the USA. It will also point out why more assembly plants will go offshore if they don't go to the Southern USA.

After you watch this, you really need think if you support the proposed bailout of the big three automakers. It will quite obviously be another large chunk of our (taxpayers) money going for a futile cause - because those companies are not ever going to be able to change enough to be successful until the UAW is willing to make some huge changes. And that seems unlikely. If the Big Three were to take the bankrupcy route, they maight be able to reorganzie and shuck the shackles of the UAW. And keep in mind that a high percentage of the cars sold in the USA are made in the USA today -- not just by Ford, GM, and Chrysler -- but by Toyota, Honda, and many of the rest. They are built by American workers and they are being profitable. Why, you must ask? Because they are non-union operations and do not have the UAW hanging around their necks like large ship anchors.

>http://info.detnews.com/video/index.cfm?id=1189