Former US House Speaker and REpublican party nominee Newt Gingrich recently touched on the auto industry at a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa. At his first real test as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Gingrich responded to a question about jobs leaving the United States and targeted the United Auto Workers (UAW).
Gingrich praised the international automakers with nonunion plants such as BMW, Mercedes, Honda and Nissan, and then stated that “the real problem is the UAW. It’s a work-rules problem; it’s not an hourly cost problem,” he told a Rotary Club breakfast meeting. “You can’t have continuous improvement if you’re not allowed to constantly modify and improve.”
The UAW has yet to respond to Gingrich’s comments.
[Source: Automotive News]