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"If GM goes bankrupt, the likely scenario is that they will dump their pension liabilities on the taxpayers. The major airlines will do the same."

Seems to me there are 2 classes of union bashers here:
Business owners who hate any and all unions. Even if they currently don't deal with a union. The other type is the guy who isn't in a union, and is jealous of what union employees have.

Either of those two groups is so filled with hate, they don't see the ramifications. They look forward to buying a $17k Trailblazer, and figure that it will offset the tax burden, (it won't).
See, you'll have the pension funds abandoned due to bankrupcy. You'll have people who become unemployed and won't recover from the blow, and will remain on the public dole. You'll have people who do pick themselves up, but go to another job making a fraction of what they formerly made, (therefore, pay less taxes).
To be sure, there will be some who prosper at an alternate form of income generation. They will be the minority.
In the meantime, our enemy, China, will grow richer and stronger. Don't forget for one second that China is not a friend. Their system is as incompatible with ours as the muslim system, (sharia law), is. China is communist, don't forget it.

None of that matters, our fellow FReepers are just giddy looking forward to that $17k Trailblazer. (Which won't happen, GM will maintain prices and increase profits short term with their Chinese labor).

Few days ago, here on FR, a professional person made the statement that no unskilled labor was worth $25 per hour.

I asked him what he saw as adequate pay for labor. I got no answer.

Unions are bad??? Yes many are. However if one reads history, this country had only a tiny middle class until unions arrived.

Andrew Mellon raged at Henry Ford because he was paying his workers $5 a day. Ford was told that laborers had no need for money, only enough pay for subsistence.