GM management and UAW leadership have reached an agreement—that neither should be blamed for the problems that the company finds itself in:
Today, a top GM executive and the head of the United Auto Workers defended GM’s management this morning, saying that the near collapse of the company can’t be blamed on chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner, Jr., and that his departure should not be made a condition of federal assistance.
Singling out Wagoner “is like blaming the mayor of a city hit by an earthquake,” GM vice chairman Robert A. Lutz said in an interview on business cable network CNBC this morning. Noting the global collapse of demand for new cars and the slowdown in the U.S. and other major economies, Lutz said that calls for Wagoner’s resignation was “in the category of some sort of sacrifice to the gods . . . If we punish some of the innocents things will get better.”
The difference, of course, is that the mayor of the city generally didn’t cause the earthquake. Look, I know that the financial crisis isn’t of GM’s making but GM had problems before the financial crisis. The financial crisis just made the problem inescapable.
The proper analogy is to a builder who builds a substandard structure that falls down in an earthquake. He’s not responsible for the earthquake but he damned well is responsible for the lousy construction.
Besides, if GM management are just innocent bystanders what the heck were they being paid for all those years?
