高級英語視聽說第七單元文本 GMs Difficult Road Ahead

1、 Unit 7 GMs Difficult Road AheadEpisode 1 If the old saying “whats good for American is good for General Motor and vice versa” is still true, we are all in a lot of trouble. General Motors is limping along in the breakdown lane, in need of a lot more than a minor tune-up. With GMs stock trading near

2、 an all time low and its bonds rated as junk, the company reported losses of more than $10 billion last year. Unless it stops hemorrhaging money, it will have to be towed into bankruptcy courta consequence that could cascade through the American economy, threatening up to a million jobs and changing

3、 the dreams of American workers. *General Motors is not just another company. For almost a century, it was emblematic of American industrial dominance, with a car for every customer and a brand for every stratum of society. *Back when Pontiacs were as sexy as Sinatra and Cadillac the synonym for lux

4、ury, GM made half the cars in the United States. And a job on one of its assembly lines was a ticket into the middle class. But that was before the first oil shock, and the Japanese imports. Today, General Motors is losing $24 million a dayand * all bets are off. Cole: *And this is not a phantom cri

5、sis or a fake crisis. This is a real crisis. David Cole is chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, a non-profit consulting firm in Ann Arbor Michigan. He is widely considered one of the industrys top analysts, and believes that Detroit is now facing what the steel industry and the big airlin

6、es have already been through: high labor costs that make it almost impossible to compete. Cole: And every one of the Big Three faces a problem right now of about $2000 to $2500 per vehicle produced cost disadvantage. * If that plays out over time, theyre all dead. Correspondent: Change or die. Cole:

7、 Its change or die. Everything is driven by a profitable business. If you cant be profitable, you cant be in business. Episode 2: Wagoner: This is a mid-sized car, the Chevy Impala SS It has certainly not escaped the attention of General Motors chairman Rick Wagoner, who we met at the Detroit Auto S

8、how and may have the toughest job in America: running a corporation many analysts believe has become, too big , too bloated and too slow to compete with more nimble foreign competitors. Correspondent: How did General Motors get to the point where it is right now? Wagoner: Cause we have a long histor

9、y, almost 100 years. We have a lot of employees. We 5 / 1 have a lot of retirees, a lot of dependents. And promises were made about benefits to those people that werent very expensive when they were made. And its really given us some financial challenges. One of them is that most of the people on GM

10、s payroll are no longer making cars. Every month, it sends out nearly a half million pension checks to former workers, many of whom retired in their 50s after 30 years of service and live in communities where GM plants closed long ago. Then there is the ever-rising cost of health care. GM has one of

11、 the most generous plans in America and provides it to 1.1 million people retirees, workers and their dependents at a cost of $6 billion a year. More than any company in America. Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University, has done the math: Chaison: It comes to about $140

12、0 a car now. thats what the health care premiums of the workers who make that car is. Correspondent: More that steel? Chaison: Yeah. Much more than steel, much more than glass, much more than any other part. What youre doing when youre buying a car is youre spending a lot of money for the health car

13、e benefits of workers who are making that car. Its cost most of GMs foreign competitors dont have because their workers are usually covered by some form of government health insurance in their own countries. Rick Wagoner says its one of the promises made to workers, in good times, that it can barely

14、 afford in bad. Episode 3: Correspondent: Do you think that those promises can be kept? Wagoner: Well, we feel a responsibility to the people that those promises were made to. We also have a responsibility to insure that our business is successful in the future. The future looks so bleak that the Un

15、ited Auto Workers, the union that represents GMs hourly workers, agreed last year to give back some hard-won concessions, which included a $1 an hour cost-of-living raise for active workers, and required retirees to pay up to several hundred dollars a year towards medical insurance that had always b

16、een free. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger says it was painful but necessary. Correspondent: Was it hard to sell? Gettelfinger: Sure it was hard to sell. First of all, it was hard for us to convince ourselves that we needed to do something. It was not the easy decision to make, but it was a right deci

17、sion to make in the long term. Because our concern is the long-term viability of our membership both active and retired when it comes to their benefits or to their wage levels. And the consensus is the union may have to give up a lot more, either before or during next years contract negotiations, if

18、 General Motors is to avoid bankruptcyan outcome that could 5 / 2 allow the company to scrap its labor agreements, slash wages and pass off its pension obligations to the federal government. Cole: If you or I were given a choice between gold and silver, well take the gold every time. Gold is no long

19、er an option. The choice that theyre facing, literally, is between lead and silver. If they dont do the right things, theyre gonna get lead. Silver is still terrific. And I think thats where were headed. The industry can afford silver, but they can no longer afford gold. Correspondent: This is the e

20、nd of the corporate welfare state? Cole: Its the beginning of the end, big time. Episode 4: General Motors is still the largest automobile manufacture in the world, and most experts will tell you it has never made better cars and trucks. But its market share has fallen to 24 percent, and it has too

21、many plants and too many people for the number of cars its selling.GM wants to shut down all or part of a dozen facilities and get rid of 30,000 workers by the end of 2008,but its hamstrung by its contract with the UAW, which says it would still have to pay these workers under something called the “

22、job bank”. Cole: people are paid essentially a full salary and arent working - cant work. You cant afford literally hundreds of millions of dollars in wage to people that arent working. So the way to deal with that is to buyem out of their job. And thats gonna be a big part of whats happening in jus

23、t the next few months.” The process has already begun. The week before last, General Motors served up one of the biggest buyout packages in corporate history, offering 113,000 hourly employees anywhere from $35,000 to $140,000 to walk away from their jobs or take early retirement. The buyout could c

24、ost GM up to $2 billion, so last week it sold off a chunk of one of its most profitable business, GMACs commercial mortgage division, to help pay for it. But the ultimate cost could be much greater for communities all over the Midwest. Several generations of American workers * put food on the table

25、and kids through college working at GM factories like this one in Janesville, Wisconsin, where *a union job with General Motors was as close as you could get to guaranteed lifetime security. Its hard work with lots of overtime, but in a good year they can make $100,000, with up to five weeks vacatio

26、n. Its a great job; the problem is, it can be done in Mexico now for $3 an hour, and people here are nervous. Almost everyone in Janesville either works for GM or has a relative or family member that does. Flood: Everybody knows, you know, General Motors is the horse that pulls our car. I think that

27、s true. 5 / 3 ? Its the favorite subject at the Eagle Inn, just down the street from the union hall, where we shared a cup of coffee with retirees Steve Flood and Claude Eakins and current UAW workers Ron Splan and Matt Symons, who make SUVs at the Janesville plant. Correspondent: What would happen

28、to Janesville if GM went into bankruptcy? Splan: It certainly wouldnt be a pretty picture. I mean, theres probably 20 industries in Janesville here that supply directly to the Janesville General Motors plants. So it would be devastating. Correspondent: Are you willing to make more concessions? Flood

29、: You bet. Were gonna make sure GM survives. What we do, Im not sure. Splan: They know that were all in the same boat. I mean, if its got a hole in it, were all, were all sinking. There are some who have actually suggested that bankruptcy might be good for General Motors in the long run-that it woul

30、d allow the company to reposition itself competitively in the global market.GM chairman Rick Wagoner isnt one of them. Wagoner: Our view is thats a very bad idea. First of all, we dont think its gonna happen. We dont think its a good strategy. And we think a lot of people would lose if we did that,

31、ranging from shareholders to employees to dealers to suppliers. And its my view that all this talk about bankruptcy is way overselling the risk side of the business. But a lot of things could go wrong. A potential strike at Delphi Corp., GMs major parts suppliers, could shut down general Motors asse

32、mbly lines and create a liquidity crisis. Corporate raider Kirk Kerkorian, whose intentions are unknown, is now GMs largest individual stockholders-and making his presence felt. But most of all, GM needs to begin selling more cars and trucks without having to give them away with huge discounts. Epis

33、ode 5: Wagoner: The first thing.were bringing out at the beginning of the year is this all new sports car, the Saturn Sky, a great thing to have in their showroom. Correspondent: Its definitely not doubty. Wagoner: Definitely not. It needs to revive Buick and Pontiac the same way it resurrected Cadi

34、llac, with bold new designs and their own distinct identities. Lutz: This is one of our Cadillac studios. Right now the cars that will save GM, or not, are cloaked in blue shrouds at the companys super-secret design center in Warren, Michigan. Under the watchful eye of 74-year-old vice chairman Bob

35、Lutz, a legendary design guru, who once ran Chrysler. Lutz: Unfortunately this is a car that Id like to be able to show, but for competitive reasons we cant show it all. Ill just show you some of the, some of the advanced work that were doing on grills - that this is obviously a Cadillac, no conceal

36、ing that. 5 / 4 Correspondent: Would you have to kill me if I just took this thing and ripped it right out? Lutz: I would not be pleased with you. Lutz acknowledges that GM became complacent over the years, producing too many anonymous cars with this uninspired designs and * delegating the design pr

37、ocess too low in the corporate structure. Lutz: During the period of GMs greatness in the 50s and 60s, design ruled. And *the finance people ran behind to try to reestablish order and pick up the pieces. We just lost the focus on design. *There is no detail too small for his attention right now. From sheet metal fits to upgrading interiors, and getting rid of what he calls that “nasty rat fur upholstery. Lutz: I mean, the answer is product, product, product, produ