Domestic auto makers

Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, gave an interesting speech Monday at the UAW convention in Las Vegas.Some highlights of his speech:

> The Big Three (GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler) continue to lose market share. Ten years ago, they owned 74 percent of the U.S. market. That’s down to 58 percent now.“Shedding workers and shrinking production capacity is not a winning strategy,” Gettelfinger was quoted in USA Today. “It’s all about product, and the emphasis must be on Main Street, not Wall Street.

He’s right about that. Other than a few specialty vehicles, such as my beloved Jeep Cherokee with 209,000 miles on it, there are few cars designed and built by the Big Three that really excite a person such as me. And they don’t make the Cherokee anymore.

> He criticized companies that use bankruptcy court as a weapon to destroy the union’s collective bargaining agreements.It’s not like we would have any experience with that around here, would we? Special Metals Corp. and Horizon Natural Resources come to mind.
If there’s any consolation, both those companies have been acquired and are no longer independent operations.

The domestic auto industry has a lot of problems, but the lack of product that attracts new buyers has to be the main one. The problem is, the Big Three are so far behind the rest in design and quality that it will take a long time to catch up.