Well at least you are beyond the simple the UAW is a fraud. I'm not sure your anecdotal example or two says much about a couple of hundred thousand members.
why would the Chinese buy a bloated / inefficient bureaucracy that has been living on its past reputation while continuing to lose its market over the last 30 years. GM will go the way of Digital Computers. while it is difficult to build a new work culture of efficiency and productivity, it is ten times more difficult to break a work culture that has been cultivated for around a century. The Chinese telecom industry leadfrogged the "power-pole and transmission wire" technology and jump into the fiber optic technology. I don't see the Chinese auto makers making a play on the out-dated, out of touch, GM.
Wait a second, wasn't it you that said "Out of curiosity have you ever been in a union or are you just are repeating stuff you've heard?" I answer that question with multiple examples, and then you dismiss it as anecdotal. It wouldn't be as ironic if you weren't busy disregarding opposing viewpoints as propaganda, or 'taking a free ride', etc.
Does the fact that they have contracts that require any workers eliminated because of gains in efficiency to remain on the payroll mean anything to you?
As a libertarian are you now against freedom of contract? What are you going to do now use the government to make a law to to keep companies and unions from engaging in such contracts? Let me give you another example. I go to work for your business as a consultant on a three year contract. I am guaranteed to be paid even if business is slow. Would you prohibit this? Why should union- corporation contracts be different?
because blue collar workers are stupid and bankers are smart, I actually don't agree with you on this but I understand the sentiment. I'm tired of the anti union rhetoric also.
I could go into my opinion about how closed shops have no real freedom of contract, but I won't. Instead, I'll say that if a union forces the company into a situation where they can't be competitive and they go bankrupt, no one should feel sorry for the workers. They are sleeping in the bed that they made. After all, they had a bunch of strikes to get to this point. And if the government is going to lend billions to a company, they certainly have a right to demand that the company do whatever it takes to be competitive first. If that means renegotiating, the company and union should renegotiate before any taxpayer dollars are thrown at them.
Calling out the UAW as a prime reason for US auto manufacturing woes is hardly anti-union: it's anti-stupidity. I'm pro union, but dumb unions, just like dumb corporations, don't get my sympathy. They can both go rot in bankruptcy.
i'm not an expert on this but I assume that most of these contracts were negotiated in the good times. i think the problem for us automakers isn't as their current labor costs as much as their pension liability. what do you do with a bunch of people living off a retirement they expected?
Both sides got greedy in the "good times". "Greed" in this instance is usually synonymous with "stupid". Ergo, I really don't give a damn what happens to either of them now.
The "too big to fail" argument. Then they're too damn big. Break em up or nationalize. Either one is better than letting the status quo persist.
