Originally posted at huffingtonpost.com.
GM Goes Grassroots. A son is torn.
On November 12, Tom Brewer received an "URGENT call to action..." along with all other General Motors employees in the United States from GM North American President Troy Clarke. The return email address was "grassroots@gm.com." The urgent task at hand: Call your members of Congress to request that the American auto industry receive a government "loan" of at least $25 billion.Employees were then directed to a website through which to take action:
As a grassroots clean energy advocate and strategic communications professional, it's a type of request I know intimately. I've written and received countless emails just like it. Two this week. Tom, however, has not.
Tom has been an employee of General Motors since he graduated from Evansville University in 1974. At the time, for a Midwestern kid from "stonecutter" Bedford, Indiana, it was kind of like going to work for Google today.
As you can imagine, Tom's seen a lot happen in the energy and auto industries in the last 34 years, but before this year he never considered that his retirement, his health care, and indeed his professional future would be in such dramatic jeopardy. In fact, without ever changing careers, he once worked for the largest and arguably the most influential corporation in the world; now he's getting these emails. He never dreamed that he'd need to be calling his congressmen to save the company to which he's always been loyal, and upon which he and his family's livelihood has depended. I can speak with such certainty about Tom's past because I've known him for 27 of the 34 years he's been with General Motors, and we're very close.
Tom is my dad.
And, Dad, I can't begin to describe how torn I am this week... My friends always called you "Big Tom" because of your powerful build, and if you were "big" to them, you were superhuman to me. Just so you know, no matter what happens in the next few days, you still are...
Today, though, I'm the Internet Director (a brand new type of occupation) for the Energy Action Coalition (a brand new type of organization) and today you're the Planning Administrator of GM Manufacturing Spring Hill in Spring Hill, TN.
Today my organization is calling on me to mobilize hundreds of thousands of young people to fight in Congress and the halls of politics nationwide for the clean energy future that we MUST achieve for the future of our economy and our climate. This week your organization is calling on you to get on the phones with your congressmen to save the 100 year old auto company to whom you've devoted your entire professional life.
In the 27 years we've been a family, our story has never been more important to the country. On the one hand, if we don't bailout your company and the backbone of our economy, it seems we're doomed. On the other, if we don't work now for our future and a transition to a clean energy economy, we're doomed. It's heart wrenching, Dad. I'll go ahead and tell you now that I will help you, but I need you to be willing to help me too. Please hear me out.
My entire conscious life has been directly connected to you, General Motors and the Saturn plant in Spring Hill. The "Saturn" part of our story is especially important because it was a car and an entire company designed in the 1980's in response to Japanese vehicles that were kicking American ass during an energy crisis.
It hits so close to home right now, it hurts.
You took us from Freeland, Michigan to Middle Tennessee in 1988 when "Saturn" was nothing but 3,000 acres of corn field, some office trailers, and a rock quarry. We watched as the grassroots company grew from a trailer park in Spring Hill to an innovative, case-studied, globally known and tremendously respected brand that was actually different.
And it really really was different. Those weren't just commercials. I was there with you. Remember showing me around the facility for the first time? Remember the first Saturn Homecoming? Remember when they installed the pollution scrubbers and I was extra interested?
When the first Saturns rolled off the line in 1991, I don't know of another community of employees and local families in the United States that has ever been so proud. I remember you and mom popping in the video tape - the one of all of the Spring Hill employees and Skip LeFauve - and us watching together on the old brown couch.
It was a different kind of company. It was a different kind of car. It was innovative. And remember a few years later when Saturn became the brand through which the EV1 electric car was leased? The EV1 program put GM far ahead of the curve in the electric car field and promised to usher in a new era of American ingenuity. And remember, Dad, when you brought home an EV1 pre-launch model just as I was learning to drive?
I knew I was experiencing the future. For a teen with car and baseball magazines strewn across his bedroom floor, I beamed and bragged about you and about GM to everyone in town (and in that town it really was everyone) - though I would never admit it to you at the time. But of course as this story goes, the promise of that future ended with lobbyists in California and executives in Houston and Detroit. "Different" died. Those grassroots died.
And, as you and I both know, GM didn't stay ahead of anything - in Spring Hill or anywhere. The last of the GM EV1's were rolled to their "death" in 2005, and last month, you and the former-Saturn Spring Hill plant recently had the best product launch in GM history, which would be amazing ...except that it came with the unveiling of a brand new SUV, the Chevy Traverse.
Similar to when the first Saturns rolled off the assembly line, it's difficult to describe my feelings on this except to say that I'm so proud of you, Dad. Absolutely, yes. But I am furious with General Motors. I "support the troops, not the war."
In manufacturing terms, you and the thousands of GM employees in Spring Hill, TN and around the United States are deserving of heroic praise for your work and performance, doing more with less. In executive terms, Rick Wagoner, Bob Lutz and all the rest in Detroit should be flat out ashamed.
The Traverse is a beautiful car by traditional American auto standards, and GM has certainly spared little of its mind-numbingly waning cash promoting that traditional beauty. This "crossover" (read: glossy covered SUV), however, was born into two abysmal climates - economic and environmental - and even starting to think about any new automotive product in traditional American auto schemes represents gut-level, irresponsible, Bush-ian failure. That any car company in 2008 actually promotes something like 25 mpg (with a tailwind, going downhill) for 100 year old suck-bang-blow technology is an absolute travesty.
That it's coming from General Motors whose very survival depended on game changers and innovation for much longer than the last 24 months, is practically a crime. I know you can't innovate on a dime, Dad, but GM has had decades. The Traverse is like a hipster Tahoe. An oxymoron. Whatever they call it; however they promote it; as pretty as it may be, doing the same-old-thing-but-a-little-
better is not innovation. And again, for a company with three million dependents, not innovating is not just wrong for business, it borders on moral corruption. That's who you and I are supposed to call our Congresspersons for? That's what my grassroots support is supposed to promote? Any new vehicle launch begins years before it hits a dealer lot. I know that as well as anyone. New vehicle launch is the exact job I've watched you do for decades. Unfortunately you don't get to choose what product you produce. Rick and Bob choose that. They chose the Traverse and 100 other products and initiatives this decade, and it's precisely that lack of foresight that is unforgivable. It's precisely for these reasons that I'm inexpressibly torn this week as Congress moves to vote on an auto industry bail out.
And I'm sorry, Dad, I know we talked about this - but a "bail out" is exactly what it is. It's not a loan. "Loans" are something you do in good faith. Like when you bought our home. Remember when you walked into the First Farmers & Merchants Bank in Columbia, TN, looked Jim Cook in the eye, told him what you needed, shook his hand, and he gave it to you because with a look and a handshake he knew you were a man of integrity and character?
If you can honestly tell me that Rick, Bill, and Bob are as deserving as you were - that you would give them a loan on a look and a handshake - I'll call it a loan too.
I can only imagine that a soldier's family feels 100x worse: "Please fund the equipment my father/mom/husband/wife/son/
daughter needs to survive... and dear god, please GET US OUT OF THIS MESS!" I know we have to do something, Dad. I do. The last thing I'd ever want is for you and and three million others across this country to lose their jobs. To lose their pride. But I don't just want you to have A job, dad. I want you to have a good job. A job that's part of the leading edge of what this country can do. What it can BE. Like you used to have. I want my entire generation - bigger than any generation in US history - and those that follow us to have the best jobs in the world too. I don't want 1 in 10 jobs in the US to take a hit next week, but I also don't want hundreds of millions of already-struggling Americans to blow their tax dollars on failure. I don't want to pull out the last straw on you and your friends and colleagues, and I don't want to build scaffolding for something that's so badly broken. The truth is that I am only where I am because of the man you are and your providing for me. And you did that as a loyal employee of General Motors. I get that.
I'm just having a near-impossible time trusting your bosses with what they're asking for. I want you to have your paycheck and your health care and your pension, and shares of stock that are worth more than my morning Dupont Circle coffee, and I also want the electric and high efficiency cars I've dreamed of for over a decade.
My grassroots demands the clean energy future that I HAVE to have for your grand children.
I am a clean energy professional fighting for our collective next decades, and I am a General Motors son worried about our collective next week. So here's where I'm at, Dad...
As I said, I'm going to help you. But I need you to help me too. To some, it would appear that our jobs and our perspectives are diametrically opposed. But as you know, I see us as inextricably linked - whether we were linked by blood or not. It's crucial that someone like you and someone like me work together to move our country forward. And the grassroots is the place to do it. But it has to stay there. It can't be Rick and Bob.
Troy Clarke wrote you, and you've passed it along to me, to ask that we use the force of active citizenship to save a company and an industry. It's unprecedented in GM history, and if GM is actively and truly engaging in the democratic process from the bottom up because it cares about the future of this country, I will support it. I'm going to call my Congresswoman this week, as you and Troy asked, and I'm also going to call the Congresspersons of every state I've lived in for the past 10 years and I'm going to ask them to provide a loan for your company, Dad.
But here's what you and Troy Clarke should do for me.
Next week, and the week after, and every week until every dime of that loan is re-payed, you and Troy and all your colleagues and bosses will call your congresspersons and give them updates on how quickly you are retooling your facilities to build the next generation of clean cars and how many people you have put back to work with Green Jobs.
And before you hang up you're either going to ask for (or thank them for, if me and MY colleagues have anything to say about it) the investment in a new clean energy infrastructure that will not just save a company and an industry, but create an entirely new one.
...you know, it's funny. As I was writing this, the song "409" by the Beach Boys came on my iPod. (Yes, I still listen to the Beach Boys.) My eyes started tearing up, and if I hadn't been in public, I would have all out cried. It is one of the first songs I remember singing along with you in our car, Dad. "She's real fine, my 409..."
The thing is, a 409 cubic inch, 6.7 liter Big-Block Chevy engine isn't fine. It's not even ok. It never really was. That thinking... that tune... is what got us in this mess. I hope beyond hope that one of these years when I come home for Christmas to introduce your grand kids to Big Tom, we'll be singing a new tune together in a whole new kind of car built by the grassroots of your company.
on November 21, 2008 9:38 PM | Reply
This is the first time I post here, I read Flightblogger everyday and this really made me post something.
Yes, the problem with the GM, Ford, and the Chrysler of today and the near past has been innovation. While there has been many technological advances from Toyota, Honda, and Nissan we are still building cars that will be at the junkyard in less than 10 years. Yesterday coming home from work I saw a white 1986 Honda Civic, showed it's years, older than me and yet it had been just like my mom's first car which she sold in 1999, still running. My parents bought a new Nissan Altima in 2006, not the best on gas, but awesome in innovation for under $20k, this lead to my very first car being a new Nissan Altima Coupe, although built here, my money will once again go back to Japan instead of going for the Mustang. This Japanese innovation is what got me going back to them and my question is why, in America why don't we have these innovations coming from our great makes which once were the most innovative.
I remember from when I was a kid I liked the Chevy Tahoe, this was like 1995, but soon I found out as a kid that this was lacking innovation. Take for example the steering wheel, a detail as simple as that in the Tahoe caused my neighbors going for another brand's SUV, the simple steering wheel had not been redesigned since the 80's, I call this lack of innovation. And then cross platforms, GM made the same truck for Chevy, GMC, Cadillac and so on, it happened with every car single car, same goes for Ford and Chrysler.
Concept is something but reality is another, I love GM's concept fuel cell and hybrid cars and so on, ok, so build it and market it so everyone in America has one instead of selling the same old cheap looking Cobalt or the Hybrid Escape from Ford which does not look like a Hybrid at all unlike Toyota's Prius has got the feeling.
Sorry for my writing, I know it's all over the place but it's how I feel, and something has to be done but it's not up to the government, sure they can help, but what they need is direction, in design and innovation. Good luck to all those who work hard at GM, Ford and Chrysler, and hopefully soon there can be a good American car in my driveway.
on November 21, 2008 10:12 PM | Reply
BOP Assembly plants were gearing up for a 4 cyl. Buick(Special); Olds F-85(Cutlass) and Pontiac(LeMans).That was during the 1960-61 model changeover. I was there (Doraville, Ga.) as a Standards Engineer(IE). At the time GM had 50 % of US market and were careful not to go higher for fear of Gov't. coming in to look for anti-trust, monopoly charges. I do not know what happened to 4 cyl. idea but it didn't come to life. They continued with big cars, lost market share, etc, etc.Gas was cheap - life was good.
on November 22, 2008 1:26 AM | Reply
Jake, I am sorry that Tom is perhaps going to loose his job. That is devastating to any family and should not have to happen. But in all honesty the UAW union is a big part of the problems that GM finds itself in today. Where in the world are you paid to not work? Where else is the total labor rate of a line worker in excess of $76 per hour? The answer in both cases is, in most UAW controlled plants that makes parts for or assembles cars in the U.S. I realize the companies have made dumb decisions with styling and innovations as well as being too slow to develop a new model but they are also not cost competitive also. And that is due to the wages and benefits pushed on to the companies. Reality and competition are now staring the UAW in the face and they don't want to acknowledge it. Unfortunately bankruptcy reorganization is the only resolution. A bailout will only lead to another bailout and another, and another.
on November 22, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply
With regards to the proposed bail-out I have a simple plan that will help the american worker, create stability in the industry and fund the tax base that the govermnent runs on.
If the Senate, the House and the President put in place a bail-out plan it should be written and passed in a way that allows for the funds to be used to maintain jobs in the form of a salary/wage guarantee. By easing the concerns of layoff's, you create a level of economic confidance we have not seen in 12 to 18 months in the US.
Keeping the people on the payroll is a key point to any economic recovery plan.
The plan is simple and can be long lasting. No one rebate wonders, no one time relief but a long term payout that will generate a base for which we can move forward. This takes out union medeling, management greed, it is just what the american workers need... confidance in their employment!
Jonathan R
on November 22, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply
People like to point to the union as the problem, but that is not the main issue. Granted, being paid to not work seems to grate. But, consider a lawyer on retainer or as I did once (go on the beach being between contracts - yes, paid downtime).
Now, a couple of days ago, the WSJ had an article about the 100+ CEOS who took about $21B out of their companies the past few years. Of these, 15 had over $100M each. The justifications behind this type of thing is really silly.
Please, don't argue that the union person with the supposedly high hourly salary is the problem when you consider what CEOs have done. Too, those idiots flying to DC on private jets to then hold out a tin cup was not good PR.
About the 409, that culture was not bad, in its time. I'm sure that we can find some analog in the modern times (how about being addicted to the virtual?, or ...).
Take it from someone who has only bought GM, and mostly SUVs (and, one of the first Tahoes, which I still run) at that. If that were so bad, why did the Japanese makers jump on the bandwagon (I know, Americans want their big vehicles)? That is, when I saw SUVs (and pickups) from the Japanese firms that were much larger than what I drive, it seemed to me to be some sort of one-up game.
Sheesh, features do not make the product; it's the functionality (which Boeing needs to get back to on the 787); give me the tried and true any day over flash.
By the way, if you have miles to cover, the small-bangers just do not cut it; and, if you're not of small stature, the little and coup-ish are very uncomfortable.
About being green, we have many ways that we can go. For instance, we have the technology to retrofit all the old cars into high-mileage vehicles which would keep them out of the scrap heap. The Cuban experience has showed us how old cars can be kept in service.
I know that Lexus touts that their cars will last forever. But, the Chevy Suburban owns the crown for the longest in-service utility vehicle. It actually set the tone and was the envy of many other makers; and, it got its start way before any of our times.
on November 23, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply
This from today's London "Sunday Times":
By Irwin Stelzer (director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute)
"Set out a giant honeypot and the bears will come. And the more bearish they are about their prospects, the faster they will come, and the louder they will grunt. The Bush administration presides over a giant honeypot, containing some $350 billion. And a smaller one, with a mere $25 billion already promised to the begging bowls of the three US carmakers. This smaller pot comes with too many restrictions — money must be used only to produce greener vehicles — to suit the “Detroit Three”.
"So the carmakers want Congress and the White House to dip into the money originally intended to help financial institutions weather the current credit crisis, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp).
President Bush and Treasury secretary Hank Paulson don’t want to bail out the carmakers, and so are arguing that they do not have the legal authority to transfer Tarp money to a purpose not authorised in the legislation.
"If GM is on the verge of bankruptcy, says the administration, all the Democrats in Congress have to do is remove the green conditions, and the initial $25 billion will flow to GM and others to meet their immediate cash needs. By the time they burn through that cash pile — at current rates that will take a few months — Barack Obama will be sitting in the Oval Office, from which perch he can decide how much taxpayer money he wants to commit to satisfying the seemingly insatiable appetite of the cash-guzzling trio.
"The politics are clear. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which claims more than a million active and retired members, helped deliver the key state of Michigan to Obama. They are calling in their IOU.
"Two things surprised the car-company bosses when they appeared before Congress last week. The first is the weight of the baggage carried by their principal spokesman, GM chief executive Rick Wagoner, whose company is in worse shape than Chrysler, and in far worse shape than Ford, which says it can survive without aid through 2009.
"Wagoner contends that GM’s problems stem from a short-term liquidity crisis caused by high oil prices, tight credit and consumer reluctance to spend — all forces beyond the control of management. But Wagoner has been boss since 2000 and at GM for 31 years. During this period its market share has sunk from over 50% to 20%, its losses have mounted so that it is haemorrhaging over $2 billion in cash every month, and repeated efforts to restructure the company have failed.
"The sad truth is that GM has too many workers making too few cars that people want, being sold through too many dealers at prices too low to turn a profit.
"A second surprise for GM, Ford and Chrysler has been the extent and intensity of the opposition to a bailout from a variety of politicians.
"Proponents of the bailout have always expected to have a fight on their hands from conservatives who believe that capitalism without failure is like religion without sin, from long-time critics of the industry’s management, and from those who feel that the UAW has for years extracted excessively lush compensation packages from the carmakers. (If you doubt that GM’s union contracts are a big source of its inability to compete, consider this: outside North America, where it is not burdened with such legacy costs, it is a highly successful company.)
"But nobody guessed that politicians in the many states in which non-union foreign carmakers such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda and BMW are providing good jobs for more than 113,000 workers would be quite so vigorous in protecting those companies from unfair, taxpayer-subsidised competition.
"That opposition and the weak performance of the carmakers’ chiefs in their appearance before Congress forced the Democratic leadership to abandon efforts to push through its bill to allocate $25 billion of Tarp money to the Detroit Three. Score a win, although only a temporary one, for the Bush administration.
"The car companies will now have to await the coming of Barack Obama before receiving the taxpayer-funded loans they seek — which he will make available, he says, only if he can be shown that “we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere”.
"The opposition to the bailout makes a powerful case for denying aid and letting GM file for bankruptcy. A bailout will do nothing to lighten the burden of the legacy costs under which GM and others labour. GM’s over-numerous dealers are protected from termination by state laws, and its workers’ extravagant benefit packages by contracts that require almost full compensation for laid-off workers, indefinitely. Only a bankruptcy court judge can undo those legacies.
Bankruptcy is not an option, says Wagoner firmly. Consumers will buy tickets on bankrupt airlines because their relationship with the carrier lasts only for the short duration of the flight. But car purchasers are entering a long-term relationship with the manufacturer on whose warranty they must rely.
"Unfortunately for Wagoner, there is an easy fix to that problem: a government guarantee of all warranties backing vehicles sold while GM (or Chrysler) is in bankruptcy. Throw in government guarantees of pension obligations, some retraining and other protection for older workers who might be adversely affected by rulings of the bankruptcy courts, and you have a compassionately conservative and economically efficient solution to the industry’s problems.
"But that is not to be. Politics trumps economics, and Obama now has promises to keep. Nobody wants to take note of the fact that our British friends poured billions into a failed attempt to rescue British Leyland.
"The stark choice is bankruptcy now or bankruptcy later, and now beats later by at least $50 billion. "
--Discuss.
on November 23, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply
It may be that, collectively, the UAW's IOU is fairly large. It has been building a long time due to the mode of mortgaging the future (same goes for Soc Sec and much more).
Yet, as said before, CEOs have taken their big cut, too. Look at the honey pot given to Mulally to go to Ford. Eisner taking over 100+ million out of Disney (yes, long ago) is just one example of a very large set. How did this thinking come to be (divine right of CEOs to bilk)?
Well, we can trace it back a long way. Guess what? It accelerated about 15 years ago; we can trace this phenomenon just like we can look at GM's idiotic handling of their labor, their white collar workers, and their products. Hubris, indeed.
So, politics will trump; fortunately, IMHO, the pendulum will swing back from the fat cats to something more reasonable, hopefully. But, we can expect that large government (or taxpayer-funded) projects will be the name of the game.
But, any country ought to care about its workers (and probably do this more than they worry about the fat cats).
For instance, it's really unconscionable that people are used as 'slave' labor. And, that is the culture that 'lean' rewards. Too, the US seems to have exported this thinking to the Japanese culture. To wit, a whole generation in Japan that was not able to get reasonable work; and, oodles working without benefits. Why? It has a lot to do with them coming here and exploiting US workers.
You see, these things cut both ways. Without the governments watching fat cats, they seem to move toward the extreme of only rewarding the elite.
So, the US ought to be proud of the accomplishment of exporting its bad thinking. How many who have big pockets got them by stiffing their workers? Many (we can start with Bill Gates and continue).
Here is something that is fundamental, though. Many seem to think that a large pockets doesn't suck from smaller. It's an argument saying that we're not dealing with a zero-sum game when we deal with money.
Well, it's true that money can be printed. Yet, any overly large pocket is associated with myriads of pockets from which it sucked. And, this sucking is done in very many ways.
That the UAW is cautious about politics diminishing what they have earned (that they've earned this may be debatable in part, but not in total - that is one of the main issues here - what do we all want to give up (starting with the fat cats, of course)?) is understandable (and even applaudable). Who the hell else stands up for the workers?
Oh yes, now we can expect an Administration that will talk that side.
Old man Ford was right. If workers are not paid adequately, who is going to maintain that consumer side of the equation? You see, we've allowed this debt-biased view to take ahold that essentially puts the working class into indentured slavery.
Ought we bail out GM and Ford (Chrysler went to Europe and came back with its tail between its legs)? For two reasons, national security and some semblance of trying to do economics as it ought to be done.
on November 23, 2008 10:06 PM | Reply
Enough emotionalism "I know my writing is all over the place but that's just how I FEEL".
Reality:
-- Weak designs (in many areas: styling, mechanisms, amenities, etc.)
-- Ancient infrastructure
-- Insanely expensive labor contracts (yes, there were hedge fund and bank execs who got multi-$M severance and no, that doesn't have a THING to do with whether or not Big Auto's pay structures make sense)
Solution:
-- Chapter 11, which will permit restructuring with REAL performance targets that make economic sense
-- Consider loan packages ONLY after viable companies emerge
-- .gov stop worrying about "anti-competitiveness" and permit mergers/restructuring that allow strong US companies to compete
on November 27, 2008 4:16 PM | Reply
Interesting.
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Reality: Many claim that US cars are of less quality
Solution: Recognize that quality is more than a collection of effete-biased properties
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Reality: Japan has a lost generation starting from about the time that they began to export jobs who never got any economic leverage in their lives (while fat cat streets leveraged us [as in the US taxpayers] to the hilt)
Solution: Recognize that free trade's rhetoric covers a lot of economic mis-deeding
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Reality: Japan adopted the trick of contracting where the worker gets little benefit beyond as the benefit accrues to the contracting company (another type of indentured servant - US consumer being another example)
Solution: Recognize that the exporting of this western attitude was not our best moment
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Reality: UAW workers get paid too much, get money for lazing about, have health care (oh, no!!!)
Solution: Any moral argument on the part of management was lost years ago (in many cases, CEO taxes for their retirement benefits are paid by the company - not a small sum)
---
Reality: The Suburban (Chevy, who else? - 1935) stands on its own as a functional and well-loved vehicle (which every manufacturer tried to copy - including those same Japanese CEOs who supposedly build such quality and, might I add, green vehicles (effete, indeed)
Solution: Does it need one? One yes, retrofit this baby with technology that'll boost its mileage to 60 mph or more!!!
...