State of the Union August 10, 2011

August 10, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

One more member will return to Wenzville Monday, Aug. 15, bringing the total to 7.

There will be a St. Louis City Cap meeting tonight at 7:30 pm at the Union Hall. Refreshments will be served and all are welcome.

The Women’s Committee meeting for Thursday is cancelled. There will be a CAP meeting Thursday after first shift at the Union Hall.

There will be a Veterans Committee meeting Thursday after first shift at the Union Hall. This year’s SOS “Support Our Soldiers” motorcycle ride and rally will be Saturday Sept. 17. Registration begins at 9:30 am at the Union Hall with last bike out at 11 am. Cost is $20 per bike, $5 per passenger and $5 for each extra hand. Proceeds go to Operation Homefront and Operation Undergarment. Flyers are at the entrances and you can contact Steve Melson at 636-262-1234 or Judy Guzdial at 636-373-0730 for any questions.

From August 12 through 14 the road next to Lot 3 will be closed; Gate 3 will be closed; the PEP lot all the way to medical will be closed and Lots 4 and 5 will be closed – all for resurfacing.(weather permitting)

From the Detroit Free Press: General Motors has blown $1 billion annually on projects that later get canceled. Too many GM engineers do work that isn't for cars or trucks. Too often, GM has started vehicles from scratch, rather than borrowing underpinnings from other products. So the company is seeking to make product development more efficient, executives told analysts Tuesday at the automaker's second-annual business conference, held in Warren. The automaker has posted six straight quarterly profits in a weak global auto market, but it is still working to improve its profit margins from middle-of-the pack to best-in-class, Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann said. He cited Morgan Stanley forecasts that say GM will make 5% on its operations this year, while competitors Hyundai and BMW will make 10%. "All of the things we need to do are, by and large, in our control," Ammann said. "We're not relying on heroic market-share gains. We're not relying on substantial economic recovery." GM can start eliminating those mistakes, executives said, by keeping product-development spending constant despite economic troubles. "We'd be deep -- halfway, two-thirds of the way through -- on a project, and we'd cancel it because of a weakening economy," GM CEO Dan Akerson said. "The start-stop, on-again, off-again, herky-jerky nature of our product development process was very disruptive, and it produced poor products." Delays in development because of financial troubles added a year-and-a-half delay to the launch of the Lansing-built large crossovers such as the ChevroletTraverse, she said. With these sorts of holdups, she said, "we end up being second, third, or really at the back of the pack." GM is also seeking to simplify its product-development process to help improve speed, engineering costs and quality. For instance, in 2010, GM had 30 vehicle "architectures," or underpinnings, and it will have 14 by 2018, Barra said. The number of engine architectures should fall from about 20 to 10 by the end of the decade, she said.

From Wards Auto: General Motors’ manufacturing operations won’t be caught off-guard should the U.S. market rebound from today’s stagnant sales pace to pre-recession levels of 16 million-plus units a year, says a top executive. Diana Tremblay, global chief manufacturing officer, says despite taking out 1.5 million units of North American capacity post-bankruptcy, GM has several tricks up its sleeve to keep pace should the market make a comeback. Speaking during GM’s Second Annual Global Business Conference for financial analysts, Tremblay says the auto maker’s North American manufacturing capacity utilization should close in on 100% by the end of this year. But as demand increases further, third shifts could be added across the board to push plant utilization rates as high as 133%. “At that point, we could respond to a 16 million-unit market,” she says, noting overtime could push utilization even further, to 150%. The ability to build multiple vehicles at one plant also is essential, Tremblay says, noting by 2015 more than 50% of production will come out of a network of flexible assembly plants.

From Bloomberg: General Motors is unsure whether stock-market volatility will put its forecast for U.S. vehicle sales out of reach this year, Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson said yesterday. "There's a lot of turmoil in the business and turmoil means uncertainty, so we're a little unsure of these numbers," Akerson said of Detroit-based GM's forecast for at least 13 million vehicle sales this year. The worst stock-market rout since 2008 has exacerbated a decline in GM's shares, wiping out $6.7 billion from the value of the stock held by the U.S. Treasury Department. GM rose 97 cents, or 4 percent, to $25.54 at 4 p.m yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. (GM stock was down $1.21 today in early morning trading) The U.S. Treasury holds 500 million shares of GM, a stake that was worth $19.5 billion on Jan. 7, when the stock peaked at close of $38.98. At yesterday's closing price, Treasury's holdings were worth $12.8 billion. The government planned to evaluate GM's second-quarter earnings and the market's reaction before deciding whether to sell more of its investment, a person familiar with the matter said last month. The department wants to sell its stake for at least the November initial public offering price of $33 a share and would prefer to sell in the high-$30 range, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private.

From Automotive News: General Motors said Tuesday that 96 percent of its U.S. dealerships are enrolled in a program that offers financial rewards to those who meet training and customer service goals and carry out facility renovations. The program includes about 99 percent of the automaker's U.S. retail sales volume. The automaker projects that 460 of its dealerships will have been refurbished by the end of this year, and more than 4,000 will have been renovated by the end of 2014, said Don Johnson, GM vice president in charge of U.S. sales operations. Johnson, citing numbers from GM, R.L. Polk & Co. and the National Automobile Dealers Association, said GM's roughly 4,500 U.S. dealers are better off on a number of fronts: 92.8 percent are profitable, up 15 points since 2009, when GM slashed its dealer ranks as part of its bankruptcy; Their 2011 annualized new-vehicle throughput is estimated at 493 units, up 49 percent since 2009 and the highest of any domestic automaker's dealers.