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European workers are the tone deaf ones. Saab died. Volvo is dying and owned by China. Your working demands don’t meet the requirements of running a successful
by foooorsyth 3y ago
European workers are the tone deaf ones. Saab died. Volvo is dying and owned by China. Your working demands don’t meet the requirements of running a successful automotive company today. Enjoy your two months off per year and 36 hour work weeks. They won’t keep any future Swedish automotive companies afloat.
- CPLX 3y agoMaybe they don't care. The thing about values is they only count when they're actually tested and have consequences.
- brtkdotse 3y ago> Saab died Under GM management.
- foooorsyth 3y agoSaab was facing insolvency when GM bought 50% of the company. Would you have preferred the brand to die sooner?
- brtkdotse 3y agoFrankly? Yes. The drawn out death rattle was annoying to follow. But if you list the causes of SAABs demise you get pretty far down the list before coming to "2 months vacation and 36 hour workdays" (it's 25 days and 39 hour work weeks btw).
- DennisP 3y agoSo what were the causes? I was a Saab fan so I'm curious.
- brtkdotse 3y agoI'm sure someone has a good writeup¹, but as to my understanding they had a really weird lineup where the 9-5 competed with 9-3 and both were basically low-end luxury sedans marketed as family cars. ¹) Yep, see dagw's sibling comment.
- dagw 3y agoSAAB was never really a car company. It was an aerospace company that ended up owning a car and truck manufacturer due to some mergers and ran its car division more like an eccentric hobby. The car part was never really well run or financially self-sufficient and that just became more obvious when the car part was eventually split off from the aerospace part.
- dagw 3y agoedit: Just correcting my history slightly. SAAB actually started their eccentric car hobby before merging with a car manufacturer, partially due to to the end of WW2 leaving them with a surplus of engineers and capacity and wanting to put them to some use. The rest of my point basically stands
- malfist 3y ago> The drawn out death rattle was annoying to follow You're saying that a company that employees thousands of people should have died earlier and cost those folks their jobs because....it annoyed you personally?
- brtkdotse 3y agoYou’re right. That was a poor choice of words on my part. My point was that it was obvious SAAB cars (neé SAAB Weapon Systems) wasn’t a viable business and the last few years were extremely drawn out and full of drama.
- nordsieck 3y ago> Under GM management. There's a reason they ended up as a GM brand.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DrThunder 3y agoWhy did GM have to buy them out? More socialist countries are inherently bad a creating and maintaining profitable businesses.
- dagw 3y agoSo selling off a failing company on the open market to the highest bidder is socialist. But governments bailing out a failing car manufacturer to the tune of billions of tax payer dollars is free market capitalism? Got it.
- DrThunder 3y agoThey sold it off because they were bad at making money and keeping it running. Your second sentence it a strawman. Of course it's not capitalism to bail out manufacturers. How's that working out for the US? All you've proven is that when the US implements socialist policies it's detrimental. So, thanks for proving my point.
- typon 3y agoI'm legitimately curious if there are studies or any kind of evidence that backs up your claims. Specifically, evidence that shows causation between more vacation days and lower worker productivity leading to companies shutting down their businesses.
- mediaman 3y agoIn manufacturing? What do you think happens when an employee doesn’t show up to the line because of high PTO or low working hours? Magic fairies run the assembly process for free? Manufacturing does not work like software engineering. There is an extremely direct link between people showing up to the job and parts rolling off the line. The workers aren’t watching YouTube for half the day.
- fifilura 3y agoCheap labor and general low regard of your employees also mean that there is less incentive to improve your manufacturing with automation or simply by looking at what the factory workers struggle with and improving that part of the chain. It is not as simple as you picture it.
- IntelMiner 3y agoThen simply...hire more people? Sounds like a net benefit for everyone, frankly
- mediaman 3y agoThat lowers productivity, which is the topic in question.
- FireBeyond 3y agoHuh? Let's say 1 worker works 40 hrs/week, but gets a day off every second week, i.e. 70 hrs/2weeks. I need to hire a worker to keep productivity the same on that day off. Now what if 9 other workers are staggered with their days off? My worker has a full time position (well, they need to have a day off too, but for the purpose of example. "We need someone to work when people are off" being plugged by someone who is, implicitly, covering multiple people's days off keeps productivity exactly the same. And if you make 100 widgets a day as a worker, you make 100 a day that you're working - we don't count your day off and say "Oh, you're only making 90/day now, worker productivity is lowered!"
- isodev 3y agoAre you suggesting that because some companies were mismanaged, people should suddenly allow themselves to be exploited in an effort to make it easier for companies to "not die"?
- malfist 3y agoEverything is worth sacrificing to the owner class. /s
- GamerUncle 3y agoLmao imagine just ignoring that Mercedes, bmw, porsche, Wolkswagen, Lotus, Mini, Audi, Skoda, Renault exist. Even Japanese and Korean workers are getting better deals now, why would you suck the boot, specially only to let someone like Musk enjoy more soirees at Epstein's
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mrmanner 3y agoSAAB didn’t die, they just didn’t care about making a profit selling cars. Fighter jets are much, much, much more profitable.
- foooorsyth 3y agoConsidering the market cap of SAAB AB vs the top 15 automotive brands today, this is patently untrue.