Auto industry problems shouldn’t come as a surprise

EDITOR:

I have to express my feelings about the American auto industry and especially GM Lordstown and Delphi and the former Packard Electric.

It’s no wonder they are in the shape they are in, what with paying gigantic salaries to the big shots and then having union contracts that pay people that are not working just about as much as if they were working. You can only carry so many nonproductive people on the backs of people that actually produce a marketable product. These auto companies are way beyond that. People are on retirement making much more than I ever made working in a foundry for 20 years, plus health care being paid.

I lost my job because the place closed, I was given my vacation pay, severance pay, told they weren’t going to pay our health care like they were supposed to, and showed the door; no buyout money. I’m not envious of the people that do get buyout money, I only wonder why they got anything. If the company doesn’t need them, then lay them off like every other company does. I didn’t know that when GM hires you, you have a job for life.

I never understood nor cared for hiring relatives of people already employed at their plants, keeping non-relatives out. Why? I’m sure there were good, able-bodied, competent people, honest enough to work at their plants.

When Packard Electric starting moving things to Mexico, where were the union members trying to stop the flow of work out of the country? It seems that certain people were content to let some jobs leave, as long as it wasn’t their job. Most of the mental giants that run all these industries worry about the bottom line so much and keeping their own nest feathered that they fail to realize who pays their wages, the small working man and woman. Look around, no one is working, the country is falling apart.

One other thing about the people that worked or are working in the auto industry. I ran a small business after losing my job and I can tell you that some of the most selfish, self-centered people that I ever had to deal with were people who had two incomes from either or both of the aforementioned plants. They wanted to make huge incomes but didn’t want to pay a fair wage to someone else, and most dealt with non-union people to get work done at their homes; not all workers, but many.

I’m at the point in my life that I’ll probably never buy another new car again. Even though I love America and always strive to buy American made products, to the point I rarely buy anything anymore, I seriously doubt I would consider another American make of car. I’m sick of hearing all the whining; no one helped the steel workers.

JOSEPH P. HILKO

Hermitage, PA