The UAW has to be one of the stupidest organizations ever to exist on this Earth. Since 1979, due mostly to their huge labor costs the UAW has declined in membership from over 1.5 million to less than 465,000 in 2007. Yet, they still don't get it. The remaining members still demand all of the pay and all of the fringes they previously enjoyed. Any economist, with half a brain could easily demonstrate the system they have in place is unsustainable. Have they really done a service to those 1 million members who are no longer working.
At the rate they are going in a few years the will be down to 1 member making $500.00 per hour.
An obvious solution here is for GM to purchase some new factories from Toyota. Just build them down the street form the old stuff. Call it a new company. Hire the same help.
This would give GM an opportunity to let the manufacturing divisions focus on manufacturing, and the marketing divisions to focus on getting new jobs somewhere else ~ maybe in the "newspaper business" (bwahahahaha)