HOLDEN - Invincible or Inevitable?

I did do a quick image search on this one first, looking for provenance because it is a troubling image with the look of the gulag about it. anyway I believe it's Belgium 1900. Miners finishing a shift.

Just sayin'

ONLY $150 million a year will save Holden? Rubbish. The Holden Enterprise
Agreement is the document that has utterly sunk Holden's prospects. It
defies belief that someone in the company isn't being held to account for
it.

Holden's management masks a union culture beyond most people's
comprehension. Employment costs spiralled way beyond community standards
long ago. Neither "pay freezes" nor more money will save Holden, but getting
the Fair Work Commission to dissolve the agreement and put all workers on
the award wage might be a start.

In 1991, the pre-enterprise bargaining award wage of a Holden entry level
process worker was $462.80 a week. In 1992, Holden began enterprise
bargaining and now a worker at that same classification level has a base
rate of $1194.50 a week, a 158 per cent increase, or a compound increase of
4.4 per cent year on year for 22 years. Right now, base wage rates for
process workers in the Holden enterprise agreement are in the $60,000 to
$80,000 per year range and in recent times, "hardship payments" of $3750
were given to each worker.

The modern award for such workers mandates base rates in the $37,000 to
$42,000 range. This means that before we add any of the shift penalties,
loadings, 26 allowances and the added cost of productivity restrictions,
Holden begins each working day paying its workforce almost double what it
should. After you add in the other employment costs, I estimate Holden's
workforce costs it somewhere close to triple the amount it should.

Many people who work at Holden don't actually work for Holden; they work for
the union. Occupational health and safety people are given 10 days' paid
time off a year to be trained by the union. Most companies do not allow
unions to train their OH&S people because the knowledge is used to control
the workplace to the benefit of the union.

Union delegates are also allowed up to 10 paid days a year for union
training in how to be effective union delegates and two of these delegates
are entitled to an extra Holden sponsorship of one paid month off to
"further their industrial and/or leadership development"

Holden's rules on hiring casuals are shocking and unheard of in today's
market. The agreement forbids Holden from hiring casuals except when a
"short-term increase in workload, or other unusual circumstances occurs". If
this situation arises Holden has to "consult and reach agreement" with the
union. Further, "Engagement of the agreed number of casual personnel will be
for the agreed specified tasks and the agreed specified periods." If any of
this changes, Holden must get union agreement again. After three months of
continuous full-time work a casual must be made permanent. It is impossible
to run a business like this.

An ex-employee from Adelaide, on condition of anonymity, consented to an
interview yesterday. He described the workforce as "over-managed", with one
team leader for every six workers on the production line, when one for every
25 workers would suffice.

He said "some of us workers felt it wasn't necessary to get paid what we
were getting paid to do the jobs we were doing", adding that their work is
probably worth about "20 bucks an hour". A few years back, mates took
redundancy packages in the order of "$280k plus". Workers are "like sheep"
that blindly follow the union leadership. At induction, new workers are
ushered into one-on-one meetings with the union rep who heavies them into
joining. "It is made clear that if you don't join the union you will be
sacked," he said. Union representatives "don't actually do any work for
Holden", but rather make themselves full-time enforcers of union control.

He says workers are drug tested before hiring, but "only have to stay off it
for a few weeks, get in the door and then you'll be right". Workers caught
taking drugs or being drug-affected at work are allegedly put on a fully
paid rehabilitation program, with special paid time off of about four weeks
duration, before being let back into the workforce.

Australian workplaces have a zero tolerance for drug use, with instant
dismissal the remedy, but at Holden "the union won't let the company sack"
any workers caught dealing, taking or being on drugs. "If they did a random
drug test tomorrow they'd probably have to sack 40 per cent of the
workforce," he adds.

If the Holden scenario were playing out in a privately owned business,
proper cost-cutting strategies would be used. If you have the will and can
hire the skill, there are many ways to cut labour costs. The workers can be
given a couple of years notice of significant wage drops and can receive
lump sum payouts of entitlements to help bring down family debt.

Of course, these strategies are only ever used by business people who have
no one else to bail them out. It seems Holden would rather leave the country
than dissolve its enterprise agreement. The union thinks members are better
off jobless than on award wages. Holden's fate seems sealed.

If Holden does leave, workers will receive the most generous redundancy
benefits around. Holden says leaving will cost $600m. Most of this will go
to staff payouts. The fellow interviewed agrees with my calculation: the
average production-line worker will walk away with a redundancy package of
between $300k-500k.

Liberal Party's Alex Hawke drinks the Murdoch Cool-Aid

News Ltd added more colour to the Abbott Government???s attempt to demonise GM Holden Ltd in this article in The Australian on 10 December 2013:
''ONLY $150 million a year will save Holden? Rubbish. The Holden Enterprise Agreement is the document that has utterly sunk Holden's prospects. It defies belief that someone in the company isn't being held to account for it.
Holden's management masks a union culture beyond most people's comprehension. Employment costs spiralled way beyond community standards long ago. Neither "pay freezes" nor more money will save Holden, but getting the Fair Work Commission to dissolve the agreement and put all workers on the award wage might be a start....''

It would appear that Liberal Party Member for Mitchell, Alex Hawke, drank some of that Murdoch cool-aid:
Leaving aside the rather dodgy stab at the actual amount GM Holden receives each year in subsidies, what would Mr. Hawke???s desire to trim wages mean to the weekly pay packets of ordinary workers?
The basic wage for non-trade employees at GM Holden???s Elizabeth plant ranges from $892.75 to $1,194.50 per each 38 hour week to be worked on the basis of 152 hours within a work cycle, according to the current Holden Enterprise Agreement 2011. While wages for cleaning maintenance workers range from $803.95 to $976.29 per week for 38 hours to be worked over the seven days of the week within the spread of twenty-four hours of the day, according to the current Resolve FM-Holden Enterprise Agreement covering its Elizabeth SA plant.
So it would appear that Mr. Hawke would like to see wages for these two groups of Holden workers reduced to between $267.98 and $398.16 per week. As the minimum award wage for workers engaged in manufacturing cars is from $484.40 to $822.50 per week, according to the Vehicle Industry Award 2000, he also seems to be advocating a breach of industrial relations law.
Alex Hawke???s own base salary is $195,130 per annum or around $3,752 per week, having received a generous 2.4 per cent wage rise on 1 July 2013.

*i read it on the internet.

This is a classic sign of a company that has spiraled out of control, with poor leadership, massive inefficiencies, and probably a handful of nasty workers that are trying to breed a sense of "the entitled" generation into the other employee's via the union reps. It really is inevitable if 1 man starts off with a dream with a few mates, that over the years gets larger and larger, the bigger it becomes, the more people want a piece of it. The more managers that are hired that actually don't share "the dream" of the company is, then the sheep loose focus, and before long there are more Chiefs than Indians, and know one knows why they are working there apart from getting better pay and better conditions, or winging about a lack of either.

Take Subaru Australia Manager ( I think his name was Nick Senior ) a couple of years ago..... on the question of will you be importing the Subaru BRZ to Australia. The initial management response was no - it does not fit with our product line ( not being AWD ). We may consider it at a future date. That - right there is someone who has lost "the dream .... the vision" the only reason Subaru had success through the 90's was a result of the turbo rally machine. I'm sure that was one of the most disapointing things to hear a car importer say regarding the 1 model that was a ground up sports car.... sorry - it's not in our image. Fast forward two years and now they are bringing them into the country, the waiting list was around 6 + months to get one!

I would much much rather see the government take away all of holdens Grants - every cent, and divide them up to 500 - 1000 other startup or small australian manufacturing business that will make more successful jobs than it sounds like Holden could ever hold down.

If Toyota can manufacture in australia, with no government help, and they come from one of the most expensive places on earth..... then Holden only has it's management to blame.

Toyotas profit is about $10 BILLION per year globally.

They must be laughing their heads off in Tokyo getting subsidised for their business in Australia.

Anyone noticed the latest GMH ads on TV 'we may not be building cars in Australia but we are building the best cars for Australia'
Just a thought that if it takes about 4-6 weeks to generate a campaign, then shoot and produce then get to TV, If you do the numbers and back track the timing that lot was at least in the pipeline / production a couple of weeks before the GMH / Gov. announcement.

GMH had NO intention of building cars long term in Australia

And the 'Numpties' will continue to rebadge their Commodores as Chevrolets. . . . . .Why do they do that ?