• From Chairman Mike Bullock: Nine temporary employees were converted 8/3/2015. The last one had a 3/26/2015 hire in date with GMIN of 492053432.
Congratulations to the winners of Tuesday’s elections:
Shop district 1-1 alternate committeeman - Dave Wruck
Shop district 1-4 alternate committeeman - Doug Deaton
District 1-5 committeeman - Jon Daugherty
District 2-2 committeeman - Kevin Gilmore
District 2-3 alternate committeeman - Ryan Ely
District 2-4 committeeman - Rick Edmiston
District 2-4 alternate committeeman - Karl “Big C” Wagner
Shop district 2-5 alternate committeeman - Donavin Williams
Shop district 3-1 committeeman - Walt “Kujo” Kujawa
Shop district 3-1 alternate committeeman - Bobby Harris
District 3-3 committeeman - Mike “Big Z” Prescott
District 3-3 alternate committeeman - Nick Miller
District 3-4 alternate committeeman - Tod Colbert
District 3-5 committeeman - Dan Maquire
District 3-5 alternate committeeman - Kurt Lett
• There will be Civil Rights Committee meetings Monday, August 10 between the shifts in the cafeteria. Anyone interested in attending or becoming a member is welcome.
• July was another strong month for auto sales. It’s beginning to look like this year will be the best since 2001. Here is how the van and midsize pickup segments fared:
| 2015 | 2014 | Change | Share | |
| Ford Transit | 8025 | --- | --- | 35.1% |
| GM | 6304 | 11466 | -45% | 27.6% |
| Ford Econoline | 3337 | 9040 | -63% | 14.6% |
| Mercedes Sprinter | 2163 | 2214 | -2.3% | 9.4% |
| Ram ProMaster | 1533 | 1217 | +24% | 6.7% |
| Nissan NV | 1526 | 1230 | +25% | 6.7% |
| Change | Share | |||
| Toyota Tacoma | 17033 | 13249 | +28.6% | 54.8% |
| Chevy Colorado | 7209 | --- | ---- | 23.2% |
| Nissan Frontier | 4194 | 5797 | -27.7% | 13.5% |
| GMC Canyon | 2654 | --- | ---- | 8.5% |
• Field supplies are starting to move up for both the van and the pickups. Colorado supplies, while still the lowest of any GM product, have gone from 17 days to 20 days. At 5645, they are still just a fraction of Silverado supplies, which stand at 95,265 (good for 58 days and right in the sweet spot). Canyon supplies inched up to 39 days from last month’s 35 day supply. Van supplies are also recovering, but still 2350 below last July’s level. They stand at 46 days.
• Getting back to 2001 sales, it’s interesting to look at how some of the products sold then. Silverado sales topped 700,000 for the year as GM sold nearly 980,000 full size pickups. Combined sales of the S-10 and Sonoma pickups was 204,243, and that was down from 262,680 in 2000. GM sold over 567,000 full size SUVs and 134,688 full size vans. Oddly enough, in 2001 GM had 27 car nameplates that averaged 4840 sales each. This year, GM has 16 car nameplates that average 4861 sales each, virtually the same and despite the fact that Cruze and Malibu handily outsell their ancestors. Overall GM sold 4.9 million vehicles in North America in 2001. This year at the current rate GM will sell just over 3 million vehicles in the US. What’s missing? Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab for starters. They accounted for 1.08 million sales. GM also sold over 174,000 minivans. And almost 78,000 Astro/Safari vans. What else is missing? Assembly plants in Janesville, Moraine, Wilmington, Baltimore, Linden, Pontiac, Oklahoma City, Shreveport and Doraville.
• Negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership got beached in Hawaii last week as disputes over autos, generic drugs and dairy flummoxed participants. Here’s hoping these rifts continue to grow. According to the Wall Street Journal, current and former officials concede that it is now unlikely the TPP can be completed and voted on in Congress this year as the Obama administration hoped, before the peak of a presidential campaign that is already highlighting objections to the deal from unions, environmental groups and some conservatives. Election cycles in Canada and Japan, and ultimately in the US, promise to muddy the waters further.
The cars fight pits the countries that signed Nafta more than two decades ago—the U.S., Canada and Mexico—against Japan, whose car industry uses a broad supply chain, sourcing parts from Thailand and other countries not involved in the TPP talks. The Nafta rules require that cars have over three-fifths of their content originating in North America in order to cross the borders duty free. But Japan’s auto makers want to be able to source a greater proportion of parts outside the TPP under the bloc’s rules of origin. Mexico, which is emerging as a global automotive leader, will continue to fight for its interests on automobiles, said Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexico’s economy minister, at the closing news conference on Maui. Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, along with the Detroit auto makers and a host of other lawmakers, is calling for the TPP to crack down on currency manipulation.
• Speaking of Japanese currency manipulation, Toyota reported record profits for the April-June quarter of $5.2 billion. This despite lower sales in Japan and Asia in general, with VW now the #1 automaker by sales. Credit the cheap yen, which turned what would’ve been a reduction in operating profit to a new record. Toyota concedes that for every one yen loss against the dollar, they realize a $320 million gain. This free money is not available to companies like our own. You may remember that before the Japanese government embarked on a program to weaken the yen it was trading around 85 to the dollar. Japanese auto executives argued then that an exchange rate of 100 yen to the dollar was fair. Well now the yen is at 123, which means $7.6 billion of free profit for Toyota. That illustrates just how important it is for the TPP to be scuttled.
Tom Brune
UAW Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119
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