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Auto Union Boss Buys Hybrid

Sends Message to Big Three

August 30, 2005
The U.S auto industry has made its living for the last ten years building big trucks and sport utility vehicles into big profits.

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But times are changing. Rising gasoline prices have turned a truck or SUV fill up into something just short of a major financial decision. Demand for big engines and big power is dropping as fast as gas prices are going up.

United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger concedes he is concerned about high U.S. gasoline prices. Gettelfinger is so worried about gas prices that he bought a hybrid.

"I drive a hybrid myself, a Ford Escape hybrid. I love it," he said. He called the compact SUV, built with some technology that Ford licenses from Toyota as part of "the new technology age of vehicles."

Gettelfingers’ concern about gas prices goes beyond his pocketbook though and he has raised those concerns with General Motors. Gettelfinger is worried about the future of the big three automakers that employ most of his rank-and-file union members.

While GM continues to look to the future with a lineup of full-size trucks and SUVs, Toyota and Honda are leading the auto industry into a new age of hybrids.

But the UAW has failed to sign up workers at foreign-owned auto assembly plants cropping up across the southern United States. The union is stuck with the Big Three.

GM is preparing to roll out a new lineup of full-size trucks and SUVs as part of a turnaround plan. If the vehicles do poorly the world's largest automaker, which has lost $2.5 billion in North America so far this year, could find itself in an even deeper hole.

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