zoom- the cafe laws require the automakers to balance out the fleet to match the numbers. they have very little wiggle room this time. With droping market share they are adjusting accordingly. More truck operations will be mothballed before this is over. I say it again, the east and west coast liberal democrats, who control this party are jumping for joy. Instead of drilling here,they put everything on the back of the domestic auto companies. They worship the Japnesee and German auto companies which are subsidized by their governments. meanwhile here in the US, punishing our own industries is the agenda.Of course if GM Ford and Chrysler build what the environmentalists tell them to everything will be fine.In the meantime the auto job losses in the midwest are staggering wih no end in sight. Thank you Nancy Pelosi and company.

For those of you who claim it was the UAW high labor costs need to do some math on the actual cost to build one SUV.- You will see that Janesville has the # 2 spot for highest productivity of all manufactured SUV in America and contrary to what people think Toyota was the lowest.- Here is the lastest harbour report on productivity.-

Ranking Productivity

These productivity scores show how many hours it takes for workers at big SUV plants to make a vehicle:
1. GM, Arlington, Texas: 22.61 hours
2. GM, Janesville: 23.53
3. Chrysler LLC, Newark, Del.: 24.28
4. Ford Motor Co., Wayne, Mich.: 25.09
5. GM, Silao, Mexico: 27.45
6. Toyota, Princeton, Ind.: 36.05.
Source: The Harbour Report

rascel: The latest CAFE standards were part of a much larger energy bill. "The revised Senate bill passed 86-8 on December 13. The House approved this final version 314-100 on December 18, and President Bush signed it the following day."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Inde...

That being said, CAFE is the wrong answer. Instead of reducing consumption, it will simply allow us to continue our dependence on foreign oil. To paraphrase what GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said: "CAFE was like fighting America’s obesity problem by setting a cap on the size of our pants."

garyprimer: I would be extremely surprised if Toyota, a non-union company, would do business in a union town, and so close to union factories in Belvidere and Chicago.

Peechy: If Republicans are the savior of business, where have they been the last eight years, six of which they completely controlled the House and Senate?

The new cafe rules enacted last year by DEMOCRATIC senators and congress is the reason GM pulled the plug on Janesville. You can point fingers all day long at why thay have the wrong product. GM put billions into this product line only to have the eco nuts that control democrats pull the rug out from underneath them with laws that basically make these suburbans illegal in a few years. Democrats have historically hated GM going back to the 1960s when Sen. Hubert Humphrey tried to break them up. Many older local people may recall when this was a Chevrolet/Fisher operation, the plan was to take Chevy and another division and spin it off in to a new company. Jimmy Carter comes around, and some may remember Joan Claybrook who tried to tell the auto industry how to run its operations. The Clintons had a republican house and senate and could not do damage.Then last year only 2 years after taking the majority in Washington they enact new legislation designed with malice to kill off the truck/suv market.The tree huggers must be elated to get rid of those evil suburbans, then an old polluting facility like Janesville will be removed from harming the planet.The UAW by supporting this party is effectively commiting suicide. Make now mistake about it,these new nazis are going in for the kill. By destroying the old smokestack industries and reshaping the US economy into a "green" utopia where they rule. The auto industry is just the first to go.

I would point out that Lab Safety, which they give as an example, pays ten bucks for a warehouse worker, which is a great deal of the their staff. If you work hard you can work your way up to 13 in two years. Don't get me wrong, Lab Safety is a great company and a great second family income. Distribution and Lab Safety type jobs aren't enough unless Janesville starts basing its tax rates, housing, food, and city services on people making 10-14 dollars an hour as their main source of income.

brightjade - A water park? Is that the best you can do? A water park on a future EPA Superfund site? Heavan help Janesville.

Jsntm Doyle built the GM road. I thought we the taxpayers did. I didn't know Doyle paid for it out of his own pocket. That remember what history has taught us. Dems raise taxes and make it harder for business to do business, Repubs lower taxes so Businesses will re-invest and create more jobs. I'm not saying one party is better than another, I vote both based on who has the policies I agree with and if you can't see all Doyle is doing now is blowing smoke up our (fill in) then there is a blind school here in town you may want to check out.

At risk of being accused of adding grist to the rumor mill (guilty) I have heard that Toyota is inquiring about the Janesville plant for use as a parts facility. I do not know if that means that they would be manufacturing parts there (probably pretty good) or warehousing parts for distribution (probably not as good) or perhaps some combination of the two (it is a pretty big facility). While inquiring is a long way from committing, it is still a good sign for Janesville. While I am sure that anything that they would put there would in no way make up for the loss of the GM production plant, it would certainly make a large number of much needed jobs available. These jobs would most likely be much lower pay with less benefits, but it might serve Janesville well because the workers would most likely not be able to commute from far away and most of their wages would stay in Janesville.

Frank Shultz another pathetic attempt to tie the problems of the US auto industry solely on the price of crude oil. "After all, it was global conditions—oil prices, etc.—that led to the GM decision." GM has been losing market share for the past 30 years! Wake UP! The fact that GM is pulling out of a grossly ineffecient facility like Janesville-should be no surprise-that fact that it remained open after 1984 is a bigger surprise to me.

The midwest is NOT business friendly-for manufacturing firms. Forced to join the local union, confiscatory state income taxes, high state fuel taxes, an industry that is non competitive these are the problems. Visit Woodmans and ask how welcome their union is.

Your simplistic rationale to dismiss GMs current problems on the current price of crude oil only demonstrates your lack of knowledge of market economics.

Are the Japanese that much smarter than those in Detroit? I dont think so. UNskilled labor cannot demand high wages in a global economy. Despite the high cost of fuel, the amount of time it takes to today to earn income to buy 1 gallon of fuel has shortened-not increased. There will always be a labor market for unskilled labor, however, in challenging times, it will be those people who suffer more because of their lack of marketeable skills.

Jim P. You are correct in your recollection of Ross Perot and well-versed in the workings of the GM Corporation. Good old Ross Perot...now, there was a man with vision. I remember his admonition to the US that if NAFTA was signed, he could hear the giant sucking sound as jobs left the country. He may have been called a nut-case but history has proven him to be a visionary and we are now being held hostage by foreign countries. As their economies grow, ours continues to decline.

R1234~
When the elected officials leave office, they have govt. jobs waiting for them at the end of their term. They create these positions while they're in power and have them to fall back on when they're done. It's called CORRUPT. It's called no LEADERSHIP! I've been in these blog sites speaking of this for some time and those words just seem to go unnoticed in mainstream society. It's become accepted these days. People have become to resigned to their perceived fates and it sickens me to no end! The worst part, it's all happening on our watch! WE THE PEOPLE ! Everyone of these people in power are a product of our culture. It's the families of America that are raising these people. Raise them in a society where honor,duty and integrity aren't taught and held to a premium and that's the leaders you're going to have! It's up to US to unite our communities and take a stand. It has to start at home with good morals and values being taught to our kids. Not what the garbage media is teaching them and our schools ignoring American history. A country that ignores it's history is doomed to repeat it! Anyone that thinks we can't band together and do something about this, you're dead wrong. I've got proof we can! I'm choosing to get better and make a difference..... what about the rest of you? The time is now! God Bless

You cite 300 - 800 jobs lost in Dane County (300,000 population), a mere pittance as compared with the losses, percentage-wise, in Rock. The pay scale is also higher in Madison which attracts a different population. Before the last few years, Madison continually and methodically added good jobs and is still adding jobs as they grow and build to the North, East, and West which will absorb their recent losses. Where was the growth in Janesville or anywhere between Madison and Janesville in the past 15 years? Let's see, in Janesville..... Menards expanded, Home Depot moved in, a good number of fast food restaurant chains have been built, Goodwill, resale shops, WalMart, Sam's Club, a few warehouses, oh yes, and a new road for GM to take their equipment away. Madison could have grown toward the south as well and brought their diversity with the jobs, just as they have done with the North, East, and West.

Now, lets see what could have been placed in a corridor between Madison and Beloit? All the related businesses as adjuncts to Madison's successful UW......research facilities and research complexes, advertising agencies, corporate office parks.....some of the same things that are being built to Madison's East, North, and West could have been placed to the South.

I am not trying to make Madison a scapegoat, as you suggest, but would like to see our elected officials consider more than just Madison and alter its current direction of growth to include the South, also. We are just one State. If the population of Janesville is below par to compete, as you suggest, then I would have to ask why. That is another question for another day. Maybe, it’s because Madison keeps selling the people of Janesville short. I haven’t always lived in Janesville and I sometimes find the people of Janesville naive, but never stupid, and they are trainable.

R1234 - If anyone thinks your wrong about GM, take the fact that GM has for years said they are not making a profit in North America.

If people would think back to the days of Ross Perot when he sold EDS to GM and was given a seat on the board he was making waves about GM being top heavy, more chiefs than workers, how right he was, what did GM do to quiet him? They paid him a hefty $2 billion more to buy him out.

Part of what Perot was referring to was, the US has the almost all of engineering staff for worldwide production but the costs are not shared worldwide it is being charged to the US manufacturing market, making the American workers look like they were the reason for GM’s decline and this was before the cost of fuel increases.

R1234: Madison is not immune. Famous Footwear, started in Madison, just closed it's doors and relocated to St. Louis leaving 500 employees jobless. In the last 3 years, Rayovac (now Spectrum Brands) moved it's World Headquarters to Atlanta and closed it's distribution center in Madison. They have cut more than 300 jobs in Dane County in that time. What Madison has that has bolstered it's economy is the University and State Government. That will always be a stable base of employment to build upon. It also has world-renowned hospitals, a large base of financial institutions (Am Fam, CUNA, etc) and a budding bio-tech industry. Dane County has always had low unemployment because of it's workforce diversity. J-ville is becoming more diverse and should look to Madison as an example not as a scapegoat.

R1234 - I agree with you, and your assessment was dead on.

JSNTM-Case in point.

After reading the blogs regarding the GM closing and listening to everyone, including our Governor and his vow to work with GM to try to get them to stay, my opinions differ and so I choose to copy my remarks from another blog here as well.
GM has been posturing for years to get out of America. GM and other large companies rape the US taxpayer and its workforce taking charity in the form of tax benefits for the companies and loopholes so that they can function with great profits for their shareholders as well as obscene salaries for their CEO's who work from day one to undercut the rank and file employee to boost their bottom line. GM and other industries will squat when the time is right and leave communities in dire straights unable to recover for years.
It has been done by GM in many communities across this nation. Where were Governor Thompson and Governor Doyle? Are they blind to national financial news?
Our Governors have neglected all of Wisconsin with the exception of Madison. When new, high paying jobs come into Wisconsin, they are located in Madison. Madison is the showcase for Wisconsin. In the last 15 years, nothing major has been brought to Janesville or Rock County. Rock is bleeding more each day as more companies close or cut back. As all this bleeding has taken place, Janesville has been preoccupied with parks and recreational facilities and they have not been preparing for the future. I-90 is perfect for development of a technological and research corridor for the state of Wisconsin. We have an active University engaged in research which could attract many related businesses in the research field of medicine and genetics, gerontology, etc. but it is all housed in Madison. Madison is not being developed south but in other directions. We could have a thriving and bustling economy if it would spread south along I-90 straight to the WI-IL border, thereby, strengthening all the communities south of Madison. It's time for the Governor to share the wealth and spread it all around. We all pay taxes to the State of Wisconsin but Madison appears to benefit most. It is sad to see Janesville decline and there is no time to waste pandering to the likes of GM. Our future is here now and we must demand value from our Governor and our representatives for our tax dollar and our vote more now than ever before; we do have power with our votes. As we lose jobs, maybe our elected officials should lose theirs, or take a pay cut, or maybe even have their benefits cut. What a concept!!!

For all of he Union bashers and it can't happen to me, need to understand the history of why Unions were started.
As long as this is about the UAW there is a web site under construction that has plenty of information from the early years already viewable.
http://www.uaw.org/History/#
after clicking on the link you still need to click (UAW HISTORY 70 YEARS (Under Development)
You might just become more aware of why & what the workers did to make life easier for all of us today.

You said it all Snarly

Why wouldn't GM be responsible for cleaning up the polution?

"....i guess better yet shut up!"-JSNTM

Yeah, nothing rude about that. Try standing up for what you believe in in a more civilized way and maybe someone will take you seriously.

The misguided bitterness some of you show for Doyle is pretty sad and not helping anything. Take a look at Saint Paul, MN, losing a Ford plant, want to pin that on the Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty? Doubt it.

Status quo, you know, that is Latin for "the mess we're in."
Ronald Reagan

Welcome to the rest of the world! Forward!

Why do people talk about a water park and stores on GM grounds? Do you not know about pollution. Do you really want your kids on the property where you can't drink the water now. Why do you think water is brought in. The cost of cleaning it up for that purpose is way too much. I guess all the GM haters and people that couldn't wait for this can pick up that cost. They live in lala land anyway.

"How did he get into office anyway"
Im Betting almost all UAW workers voted for Doyle

No kidding. the UAW is what killed the Janesville plant.

A BEAUTIFUL SITE FOR A CITY WITHIN A CITY..A water park, all year round a motel , many shops, and ect , could be done....

I used to work for Motorola in Harvard. Most don't know this but their first choice for that plant was Elkhorn. One of the reasons didn't build there was because of the taxes. Until this state changes the way it taxes people/business nothing is going to change.

If the state was smart they would offer to build a new plant that would fit future markets. Sure we'll have to pay for it in taxes but the benefits far outway that cost.

If they could convince GM to come back with a new factory then the UAW needs to back off. The benefits and wages are way to high for them to compete against Toyota and Honda that are located in the South. They are located in right to work states (no union) where the wages are fair but not too high.

JSNTM: tjncj is right. Our elected governor should not participate in any GM talks as he could only hurt the process. How did he get into office anyway? As far as going after the 10 million, who cares. That is a drop in the bucket for GM. If Doyle thought he was doing them a huge favor by giving it to them he was foolish.

As long as our government keeps pushing us to be a tourism state we will have these problems. The taxes are high and the UAW was very irresponsible and asked for too much. The wages these workers made are unheard of for this type of work. Do not take the last comment wrong. I feel horrible that this has happened and worry greatly about the families that this has impacted.

Anyone see GM stock tick up since "the Announcement." Go figure. Waggoner's wage package is tied to stock performance. These CEOs are rewarded for killing jobs. How can that be changed?

With expensive oil likely to stay with us, Janesville's future might be better without GM. Its excellent location would work well for manufacturing to serve a regional market as well as for regional distribution.

JSNTM-Just another one of your bitter, rude responses. Doyle's support of the road out of GM or the training programs are not good examples of Doyles treating of business. They were done first because he was held over the barrel by GM and secondly because it is good PR for him. The high taxes and antibusiness atmosphere scare companies from coming encourage existing companies and/or their corporate headquarters out of our state.

I heard Hyundai might be interested in building a plant in Janesville because of the infrastructure needed for an auto plant and the workforce. Anybody else hear talk of this?

Msgrs. Venable, Otterstein and Beckord should follow Mr. Sheiffer and GM out of town.
*
My area Kenosha languished for years when Chrysler bailed-out - and the only thing that brought serious redevelopement was after the political leadership of the city and the county was changed across the board.
*
Of course, Kenosha has an elected mayor and county executive, so it was up to the voters - many ex-Chrysler laborers - to make a change; Janesville is top-heavy with so-called city fathers, who may or may not want to make such wholesale changes to the political leadership.
*
Without changing those cogs in the wheel, the GM plant will still be standing, empty, in 2020, overgrown with weeds, vines, and heartbreak.

People keep blaming high gas prices - essentially quoting what GM stated as the reason it shut the plants down. That is all spin by GM. Their failure to see where the car market was going compared to its competition, its granting the UAW of obsenely high wages on local and global level for its "brothers and sisters" is incredibly short sighted if you want succeed in a global marketplace for a job the requires no trainning or education before you walk in the door, are the real culprits here.

Why isn't GM turning the plant back to smaller cars the way it was in the early 90's If gas prices alone are the reason? The plant is too old and the wages and beni's are too high.

There is a reason there are "no jobs like these anymore"...it is simply not sustainable economically to support them. Look at Honda and Toyota's business model in the US - higher quality than GM, Ford and Chysler and no union labor.

Rascal: Or take a look at how Kenosha rebounded when Chrysler left in '88 and 5,500 employees lost jobs. They went after and attracted multiple smaller businesses to replace one large one. It took several years but they are thriving now. Janesville doesn't have to become Flintsville.

Want to see Janesvilles future? take a trip over to Flint. 300 acres of what was the Buick site,a vast weed choked concrete slab. Nearby 100 acres of concrete that was the original Chevrolet site. They leave the floors to avoid having to remove the polluted soil.( they find oil at 100 ft down in some areas) They cannot sell or even give away these properties.The Janesville property is older than these places were. GM wont waste any time demolishing these buildings and sell it for scrap. Flint is full of these wastelands.Flint also tried to be a transportation hub and that failed.No matter what the movers and shakers say nothing replaces these good paying jobs. These are not Wal-mart wages these are economy supporting wages.Welcome to the nightmare

The city should look into some new zoning laws.

I don't know how the laws are written here in Janesville, but perhaps we need a law like they have in Las Vegas. If you Own the building, and it is abandoned, then you MUST by law, return the site to bare clean level dirt. If we make it expensive for GM to abandon the plant, they may find it more cost efective to retool to an updated car line.
If GM decides to level the site, then It will be easier for Janesville to get something else in there, Or at the very least I won't cost the City to level the site. Perhaps Janesville may wind up with a new Park site.

But Janseville needs to move fast to make sure we are not just stuck with an expensive white elephant on there hands.

2007 Property Taxes are $680,839.94 prior to credits.

According to the county treasurer office web site, 1000 General Motors Drive is assessed at about $25M and they pay annual taxes of about $641K.
That said, the property will still be there after the production stops, so there will still be property taxes collected.

I would be curious to know what GM pays in property taxes and what will the City do to cut costs now, to handle the expected shortfall after 2010?

Mr. Doyle, go ahead and make the big promises that you cannot keep. Blame GM, blame Bush, blame society but never once blame your administration and it's anti business stance. Keep people fat, dumb and happy with your social programs and your state continues to move backwards.