I know that bashing the union is very popular on these auto discussions, but I fail to grasp the logic. GM was and is owned by the stockholders who select the board of directors who select the CEO who selects a management team. These are the people who run the company and if it goes into bankruptcy, they will be the people responsible.
I am not a real fan of unions but I have to acknowledge that the union leadership has done a better job of building wealth for their membership than the board of directors and company management has done in building wealth for the stockholders.
Blaming the union for bad management decisions or for obtaining contracts favorable to union membership is just like blaming a customer for negotiating a lower price when they purchase a car. Possibly in this upside down world, we customers as well as the workers should all forgo the opportunity to make the best deal possible for ourselves so that we can protect those investors who fail to properly oversee the board of directors who fail to properly oversee the management who fail to make the wise and prudent decisions (including labor negotiations) necessary for the company to prosper.
“Blaming the union for bad management decisions or for obtaining contracts favorable to union membership is just like blaming a customer for negotiating a lower price when they purchase a car.”
That is a poor analogy. Imagine if you went to buy a car, and the dealer says “Until you buy a new car from us, we are going to keep your old car”. Sound like a fair negotiation, or does it sound like extortion? Unless you meet union demands, they keep you from doing business. That gives you 2 choices, bankruptcy now or bankruptcy later. They chose later is now it is here, the parasites are about to kill their hosts.
Its the same story in cities and states thoughout the country. They are all going bankrupt because of union labor costs. In states like NY which have HUGE numbers of state workers, politicians know that if they cross the union they will targeted for defeat. Instead they give in to union demands for more money and benefits for less work (that is ALWAYS the union demand). It works well until the tax money runs out.
Wherever you have big unions you have failure and bankruptcy.