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Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk
Do the math, for every car GM produces, $1500.00 of that car sale is for health insurance and retirement. For every car Toyota produces, $100.00 of that car sale is for health insurance and retirement. So, what is GM doing wrong? UAW. The union has driven these big three into the ground. At one time, unions were needed. They are now a thing of the past but still drain the pockets of the very company that pays their way. Personally, they should be left to fail. History shows that something better comes along to fill the void. We would be throwing good money after bad in this instance.
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That is the problem with american style unions which, interestingly enough, follow the principles of capitalism. Work is a product that has to be sold, as expensive as possible. As that it follows the same offer and demand principles as the rest of the US economy. Another part of the problem is that in the US, the companies are responsible for providing these services to their workforce, while in Europe it's mostly the countrys duty. And as with any product, the broader the mass, the cheaper it gets. The same applies to Japan, btw.
Unions over here also are not as rigid as american unions. The heck, once when I was in an american supermarket buying some meat to cook for the family I visited, the clerk did not want to cut it for me. He had to wait for his boss. Asking why he did not want to do such a simple task anyways I refered to union rules. I was dazzled, given that I thought that union power was much less of what it is in Europe...in fact, it is the opposite.
That aside, the union problems, though very real, are not the cause of the troubles, they just make them worse. The big 3 simply did not react to the growing asian and european competition and dug into their "bigger is better" credo, despite ompletly reversed world trends. That simple. Their own fault, as much they like it to blame others.