Whoa Nellie! I've got to jump in and set a few things straight ! The reason the car companies got into trouble had nothing to do with their unionized work forces. About three years ago, General Motors had to bail it's financial unit GMAC when they became one of the first to get into trouble in the sub prime mortgage lending market. The bailout cost GM to the tune of $8 BILLION dollars. That's BILLION with a 'B' and I don't care who you are, you don't recover from a financial hit like that in just a few short months or even a few short years.
Chrysler was ravaged by Daimler Benz. When Daimler acquired Chrysler Corporation in the early 90s, they had $9 BILLION in cash reserves. Again, BILLION with a 'B'. Over the course of the next 12 to 14 years., Daimler siphoned that cash reserve and when they finally sold tChrysler, what was left was just a little more than an empty shell.
Ford, on the other hand, has weathered this economic crisis better than its competitors because their financial arm did NOT make risky home mortgages and they were NOT taken over and stripped of their cash by Doctor Z. Ford has union contract to honor, just like GM and Chrysler. They have similar costs. They're having to compete in the same economic climate. What's the difference? Their management didn't make stupid decision that cost BILLIONS. The Ford family has held on to the business and kept it from being scooped by the Daimlers of the world.
For GM and Chrysler, too much of a financial hit followed too soon by the worst economy since the Great Depression. Unions caused this......how? If so, why is China starting to feel the pinch?
Also, GM won major concessions from the union the last time they met. GM was able to dump off its pension fund on the union, which neither side wanted. They also negotiated a B scale for new hire workers which, in a nutshell, people who hire in at GM today will never enjoy the same pay and benefits as their predecessors. The job banks are gone, history. That last contract was supposed to be the one that put GM back on solid financial footing. Management got want it wanted, and they still couldn't make it work. That is not the fault of the union or its workers.
This can be verified by doing a search for an automotive writer named Ed Wallace, who is also one of the leading analysts in the automotive industry.
Never, never, begrudge an American worker one red penny. You've never worked on an assembly line. That's obvious. It's hard work. The myth that assembly line workers just stand around all day is pure bunk. It's hard work. It's fast paced. And it takes more than an average degree of mechanical aptitude. When you decide for the others the value of their labor, you're no better than the union representatives you rail against. In fact, deciding for others what their appropriate level of compensation should be is the first step toward socialism. (That opens up another can of worms, so I won't remind of how it was unions that actually brought about the fall of communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Lech Walesa, Solidarity, they brought down the communist government in Poland and the rest fell like dominoes.) Besides, there are people who say the same thing about you, that you are overpaid and your salary is the reason they have to pay so much for a ticket to go see grandma for Christmas. Be careful where you point.
Those are the facts, with a little history thrown in for good measure. There is only one truth, the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that is much bigger than all of this anyway.
