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Ford CEO Alan Mulally said he'll work for $1 per year to get loans
- Thread starter synth3tik
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THE TRAGEDY OF THE AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY: A Play in Three Acts
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=14260
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=14260
I don't think he's talking about the benefits applied to active workers, he's referring to the benefits for retirees, the other $32 per hour.
Hopefully the new UAW contracts the article refers to actually remove some of the burden of current benefit costs and costs for future retirees. I'd be interested to see where the author got his information, thats the problem with non-academic articles, no source citation. Call me paranoid, but I hesitate to believe much of what I read in newspapers or on websites and hear on TV, regardless of what political side its supposed to be on.
I read on here that Mulally should be fired, hes incompetent, his company builds junk etc
I respectfully suggest that you have not paid attention.
Allan Mulally was hired in 2006 (by William Ford, the former CEO who realized he was in over his head) too begin undoing years of mismanagement. He came from Boeing where he was successful in developing new planes and working with the unions. His ideas and work allowed the company to thrive and take market share back from Airbus. He brought forward many products designed for a time of increasing fuel and operating cost years before the cost of fuel was an issue.
When he arrived at Ford he began massive cost cutting measures, he sold unproductive brands, and renegotiated contracts with the unions. He reorganized the company is ways that will take time to show, but are beginning to bear fruits now. He placed a new emphasis on quality and safety, (in independent quality scores ford is routinely top three, often above Toyota.) He reorganized how the company designs products. Example: instead of each section of the global company designing their own chassis and platforms, Mulally consolidated them to take advantage of economies of scale and to utilize outstanding products. Ford has gone from 3 small car chassis to one, one very good chassis. The chassis can be modified to better suite the needs and tastes of different regions, but the changes are minor compared to the cost of completely designing something from scratch. The Mazda 6, Ford Fusion, Mercury Millan, Lincoln MXS and I believe the Volvo S40 all are products of this. They are also producing more low cost, high fuel mileage cars. (Ford of Europe has been producing these for years.) In 2011 the first of these cars will begin to arrive. The new Fiesta diesel can get 65mpg!
Mulally worked with the unions to restructure their contracts. While still not as competitive as the foreign makers, the contracts are much better. They reduced the initial pay rates, eliminated pensions for new employees, and reorganized the legacy cost of the pensions and healthcare. In 2010 the UAW will be responsible for administering the retirees benefits. Ford (and GM and Chrysler) have funded a trust that the UAW will administer. (As of now, Ford is the only company to actually fund the trust; the other two are behind on their first payment.) Most of these contracts take effect in 2010.
Mulally reorganized the debt of the company, securing loans before the economy turned to make sure they could survive. Right now, Ford has enough cash to survive on its own. They are asking the government for a line of credit they can access if the economy turns worse than projected. GM does not have the money to survive the end of the year, ford can go till 2010, when the new union contracts will take effect and hopefully the economic picture brightens.
Mulally has not just continued business as normal, he has drastically altered the way the company does business. He is setting the company up for the future in a profitable and sustainable fashion. Not bad for a buck.
Allan Mulally was hired in 2006 (by William Ford, the former CEO who realized he was in over his head) too begin undoing years of mismanagement. He came from Boeing where he was successful in developing new planes and working with the unions. His ideas and work allowed the company to thrive and take market share back from Airbus. He brought forward many products designed for a time of increasing fuel and operating cost years before the cost of fuel was an issue.
When he arrived at Ford he began massive cost cutting measures, he sold unproductive brands, and renegotiated contracts with the unions. He reorganized the company is ways that will take time to show, but are beginning to bear fruits now. He placed a new emphasis on quality and safety, (in independent quality scores ford is routinely top three, often above Toyota.) He reorganized how the company designs products. Example: instead of each section of the global company designing their own chassis and platforms, Mulally consolidated them to take advantage of economies of scale and to utilize outstanding products. Ford has gone from 3 small car chassis to one, one very good chassis. The chassis can be modified to better suite the needs and tastes of different regions, but the changes are minor compared to the cost of completely designing something from scratch. The Mazda 6, Ford Fusion, Mercury Millan, Lincoln MXS and I believe the Volvo S40 all are products of this. They are also producing more low cost, high fuel mileage cars. (Ford of Europe has been producing these for years.) In 2011 the first of these cars will begin to arrive. The new Fiesta diesel can get 65mpg!
Mulally worked with the unions to restructure their contracts. While still not as competitive as the foreign makers, the contracts are much better. They reduced the initial pay rates, eliminated pensions for new employees, and reorganized the legacy cost of the pensions and healthcare. In 2010 the UAW will be responsible for administering the retirees benefits. Ford (and GM and Chrysler) have funded a trust that the UAW will administer. (As of now, Ford is the only company to actually fund the trust; the other two are behind on their first payment.) Most of these contracts take effect in 2010.
Mulally reorganized the debt of the company, securing loans before the economy turned to make sure they could survive. Right now, Ford has enough cash to survive on its own. They are asking the government for a line of credit they can access if the economy turns worse than projected. GM does not have the money to survive the end of the year, ford can go till 2010, when the new union contracts will take effect and hopefully the economic picture brightens.
Mulally has not just continued business as normal, he has drastically altered the way the company does business. He is setting the company up for the future in a profitable and sustainable fashion. Not bad for a buck.
If you go back through this entire thread, you will see that nobody has said that Mulally should be fired. They said he was incompetent, yes, but no-one said he should be fired.
What we are saying is that this 'good faith gesture' of him dropping his salary to $1/year if they get the funding is too little-too late of a PR gesture. For them to get this bad, they had to have known things were going to pants at least 2 years ago, when he got the job. Back then was the time to say/do something like this, especially when gas was reaching $4/gallon. Reference Continental Airlines (like I said before). The CEO let alone the entire executive board there said they would forego their entire salary, instead putting it and their bonuses into buying fuel so they could stay in business.. and that was at the time when gas was up to $3/gallon.
What we are saying is that timing was everything into the buildup of their fallout. If he had said he'd work for $1 this time last year, we wouldn't be having this thread. If he said it 2 years ago, Ford would be in a much better place, in both moral and all around self esteem.
BL.
The CEO of Ford did exactly that back then. On May 12, 2005, CEO Bill Ford, Jr. informed shareholders that he will accept no cash compensation until Ford Motor Company’s automotive business is profitable on a sustainable basis. When he realized that he was not up to the job, he went and got Mulally. Since Mulally has only been there two years, I don't know why he would be expected to leave Boeing to work for free.
Agreed. Seriously, there are no products out there right now that reflect his leadership. How long did it take Jobs to get Apple back on its feet? A lot longer then 2 years.....
The only one you can call incompetent is Wagoner since he has been CEO of GM since 2000. The other two just recently got the job.
well Ford is standing there in the most favorite position of the "big 3" so at least he did something right
as for the unions: there are ridiculous strong unions in other countries as well and those companies aren't pointing finger in that direction ...
as for the unions: there are ridiculous strong unions in other countries as well and those companies aren't pointing finger in that direction ...
I don't see how any of this matters.Obviously they are not selling cars that people want to buy, Toyota,Honda,Nissan and other foreign makers are not asking for a bailout.
Plenty of foreign car makers are asking their governments for help.
Let's not forget that when foreign car makers opened factories here, we subsidized their costs to the tune of billions in tax breaks.
those other companies are also not saddled with the cost of the Unions.
Unions are expensives. Time and time again across all industries when you compared Union companies to non union companies. The non Union companies run cheaper jobs, have much more productivity per man hour and normally have a much better work force who is willing to step up and do what needs to be done.