Chrysler vice chairman Jim Press apologized for the cows.
“We left the cows behind,” the co-president told thousands of reporters gathered for a preview of the North American International Auto Show at Detroit’s Cobo Center on Sunday.
At last year’s show, Chrysler ran cattle through downtown Detroit to unveil its redesigned Dodge Ram pickup.
“We had them all signed up to come back,” Press said. “They were called to Washington to talk to the cow czar.”
The weakest of the Big Three automakers seeks another $3 billion in federal loans on top of the $4 billion it has already secured.
So instead of cows, a couple hundred autoworkers herded outside the Cobo Center in the frosty cold, protesting the concessions they’ll likely be asked to make as Chrysler seeks more bailout money.
“My house is down by 37 percent. My 401(k) is down by 40 percent. Now they’re telling me they’re going to cut my wages by possibly 50 percent?” said Steve Waskul, 49, who has worked in a Dodge truck plant for the past 12 years.
Chrysler chief executive Bob Nardelli shrewdly avoided the stage during this tacky presentation, but afterward he was forced to answer questions about the privately held automaker’s odds of survival.
Nardelli mostly pointed to a slew of electric cars that won’t be ready for market until the end of next year at the earliest.
“That should put to bed the notion that Chrysler is going away,” he declared.
Yet how can anybody at Chrysler sleep?
Nardelli became an icon of overcompensated underperformance when he received $210 million essentially just to quit his job as CEO of Home Depot in January 2007.
Now, at Chrysler, he’s peddling electric-powered prototypes that may never be built in exchange for government bailouts. And he’s telling workers and retirees that they’re overpaid?
When some people complain about the legacy costs of U.S. automakers, they are talking about Larry Christensen, 65, who retired from Chrysler’s chassis assembly line six years ago.
Christensen worked at Chrysler for more than 30 years, earning a pension and medical benefits, as spelled out in a contract. He fears Chrysler’s majority owner, a private buyout firm called Cerberus Capital Management LP, is in too deep and may soon find a way to shed these obligations.
“I enjoy making something that’s useful,” he said. “Going in and building those trucks. . . . I felt like my life was worth something. It was honorable. It was decent.”
All Christensen wants is enough money to occasionally fly coach to visit his grandchildren in Vancouver, British Columbia, tow his pop-up camper into the woods and paddle his canoe.
He suspects the folks in Chrysler’s executive suites won’t be reduced to a pop-up camper and a canoe, no matter how badly it all ends.
“I hope they lose their dreams as bad as I’m losing mine,” he said.
Al Lewis: 201-938-5266 or al.lewis@dowjones.com
