GM Stalling as Rivals Speed Up
General Motors Corp. is suffering through its worst strike in nearly three decades because it says it must win increased productivity from its workers. A new report released here today provided fresh ammunition for the company's case by showing just how far the nation's biggest automaker trails its North American rivals.</br></br>GM loses an average of $104 per vehicle on every car and truck it produces in North America, compared with an average of $1,520 earned by Ford Motor Co. and $1,336 earned by Chrysler Corp., according to an annual report published by Harbour and Associates Inc., an independent management consulting and automotive research firm in Troy, Mich.</br></br>Looked at another way, GM would have to cut its annual labor and benefit costs by an average of $4,439 per vehicle to match North America's most efficient producer, Nissan Motor Co. in Smyrna, Tenn. GM also would have to eliminate 54,915 workers from its production payrolls, according to the Harbour report.</br></br>The Harbour report is anxiously awaited every year by auto industry executives who want to see how their companies stack up against rivals in the crucial North American market. GM officials made little effort to sugarcoat the news about their bad report card, acknowledging that it shows the company needs to improve its performance.</br></br>Ford executives were ecstatic with the report, handing out laudatory press releases at today's news conference. The report showed that their company beat the domestic competition in 1997 assembly plant productivity, posting four of the top 10 car assembly plants and eight of the top 10 truck assembly plants.