Hint for Carpenter: General Motors shareholders are Americans too.
Ironically enough, Roger Smith actually deserves a lot of criticism, but the film completely missed the mark.
Smith had to lay off those people to save the company. The company was bleeding money.
It was bleeding money largely because it was making crummy cars few in their right minds wanted to buy.
Smith was right in the middle of a movement that celebrated trying to control costs through automation at the expense of the quality and design of cars. What he wound up with was automation that didn't work, and cars that were too bland and poorly designed to sell. Thus, the layoffs.
Smith deserved criticism for his bad strategy, in other words, but not for the layoffs. Given the company's situation, they were necessary to keep it in business.
D