You’re not wrong at all:
Here’s the thing: the UAW could strike.... and achieve the most pyhrric victory in the entire history of the union movement.
What the unions seem completely incapable of understanding is that the game has changed. Gettelfinger is still living in the 90’s or 80’s, where management would cave into strike threats and cough up pay and benny packages that are unsustainable 10+ years out (as the Big Three are now finding out...)
The Big Three know that the #1 problem, bar none, is the cost of labor. The costs that are killing them are the outlandish health care and pension plans, as well as the featherbedding. There’s no way around the actuarial numbers on this; there simply have to be cuts (deep cuts) made to return the companies to a positive cash flow. This is why Ford hocked the company to the hilt to simply buy out half of the union employees. Chrysler might try the same thing, but I suspect that the UAW is now seeing the big picture for what it is — the huge buy-out at Ford, coupled with the buyouts and attrition plans at GM, have gutted the UAW. Another round of buy-outs and job cuts will leave the UAW as a toothless tiger in politics.
I actually rather hope they do - because the US can no longer afford the UAW. And with the UAW gone, the Dems lose much of their financial support.