Omaha Steve's Labor Group

GM would beat us up regularly for 50 cents per part cost reductions and threaten to pull their business if we didn't give it to them. 50 cents a part doesn't sound like much unless you sell 10k of them per week. Adds up to real money.

At one of my employers, GM asked for a 2% retroactive price reduction over the prior year. They wanted the company to write them a $8 million dollar check for parts that we had already sold, that were installed on cars they already sold and were on the road. Told us that if we didn't give it to them, they would resource all our business. Since GM was 70% of the business in my plant, they had no choice but to go along and give it to them. One of our competitors said no, and we got some of their business. It was a cut throat business and not for the faint of heart