You have to understand the mentality of the UAW leadership. If they give everything up in negotiations, then they stand a good chance of being voted out of their elected union offices by a pissed off membership. On the other hand, if they are forced to do things by a bankruptcy court that they wouldn’t otherwise do, they can claim that they stood firm for their membershop, but the courts prevailed. That’s how Union leaders always think. It’s them first and the members next. In my second career beyond the Army, I was a Human Resources Director who spent many hours bargaining with the UAW, IAM, IBEW, UFCW and Teamsters. Every deal made was based on what was going to make the leadership look good, even if they never got what they wanted. It is politics at its ugliest.
There is no way for anybody to look good in this mess. It is not that the cars are not evirofriendly or they do not get enough mileage. Nobody can buy a car. People are way overupside down in car dealer deals of the last ten years and maxed out of credit. Forget it. They won.t need even half the cars made. So they won’t need the union employees. These companies will have to downscale bigtime and make fewer cars.
The sad part is if they go bankrupt,and busted the union, and the workers got 75% of what they make now, within two years the workers would vote the union back in.Dumbasses