[NMNeil]

You may not be aware but today the VW factory workers in Tennessee are voting to see if they want to be unionized.
But if the do VW will shut up shop here and move all their production to Mexico, costing thousands their jobs.
I'm wondering if it will have a knock on effect in the UK and EU as the Mexican made cars, which are made with much lower labour costs, may be shipped in your direction. What is of further concern is that the union is pushing to unionize Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Volvo, Tesla, Rivian and Lucid.
Hands up all those who remember the unions essentially destroying the UK car industry, and many other industries back in the day?😒
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/19/busin...ote/index.html

[Beelzebub]

Interesting. I'm pretty sure it will have no immediate effect in the UK. as VW group don't really compete on price. If they have any sense, they won't pass on any savings!

I do remember the unions "destroying"" the UK car industry, though it has to be said they were helped by some seriously inept management.

However, the industry has recovered pretty well. Pre-Covid, they were making more cars than ever before, and exporting record numbers.

[Santa]

I have mixed feelings about unions. Ideally, they should be able to negotiate better terms and conditions for their members that will benefit them and their employers. Sadly, it nearly always turns into a confrontation which, in the end, benefits neither.

[NMNeil]

Unions were a good thing back in the day when employers would treat the workers little better than slaves, but with the legislation that's been put in place since then they are now just greedy.
The average production line worker at the VW factory already makes $60,000 ( 49,000 quid) a year with a full benefits package. But it's not enough for the union, they want $75,000 (60,000 quid)
So the only way the car makers can stay profitable with their already expensive new cars is to make them where there labour is cheaper.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...co-2023-03-01/

[NMNeil]

@Beelzebub But only Morgan is British owned with the cars still made in England, all the others are foreign owned.

[Beelzebub]

Does that matter? They make a huge contribution to the economy, whoever owns them.

Of the volume manufacturers of the 60s and 70s, only two survive - Ford and Vauxhall, both foreign owned. Maybe British ownership is the kiss of death.

[Rolebama]

The British car industry was seriously undermined by a lot of factors at the time. Unions, Government, and foreign manufacturers undercutting prices were probably the main ones, but owner and management ineptitude did not help, which was why most went broke and most of those that were left were nationalized.

[Santa]

Originally Posted by NMNeil

@Beelzebub But only Morgan is British owned with the cars still made in England, all the others are foreign owned.

Morgan Motor Company Limited is a British motor car manufacturer owned by Italian investment group Investindustrial.

Everything is international these days and it's hard to find any important business that is wholly owned in a single country.

[NMNeil]

@Rolebama And one of the factors is that British cars of the time were crap, and I know I worked for an Austin dealership, which gave us the Austin Maxi (The gears are in there somewhere) the Austin 1800 land crab, the Austin Ambassador AKA the door wedge, and the Austin Allegro with an almost square steering wheel.
They were simple to fix, which was a regular occurrence, and were cheap to buy, which was their only saving grace.
But on the bright side once I mastered changing a rotten Mini rear subframe in under two hours I made lots of lovely warranty money, so it wasn't all bad😁

[Rolebama]

A bike shop I worked at in the 70s was a BL, then Austin Rover dealership as well as motorcycles. I don't remember all the horror stories about design and build quality issues, there were so many! Most of them known to the manufacturer who decided to do nothing about them.

[NMNeil]

Early mini's had a cheap steel instead of braided copper ground cable from the engine to the body. Being steel it corroded and broke so the next best ground was the choke cable, leading to a lot of instrument cluster changes when the covering caught fire.
But the worse, and it wasn't a BL product was the early Reliant Robin. It had an overflow pipe from the carb which vented right above the brushes of the dynamo, and with that fiberglass body, you can guess the rest.

[NMNeil]

Voting for the union may come back to bite them. After the workers at Ford went on strike VW say it coming.
https://money.usnews.com/investing/n...ound-1-billion

[NMNeil]

And maybe Stellantis workers are now regretting unionization.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/bu...s/73427205007/