The big three would be profitable if they weren’t in the health care and retirement business as much as they are in the car business. It was GM that began the practice of corporations offering workers a company paid benefit package—not in answer to a demand by unions, but in response to unions looking at providing those services themselves. GM took the initiative to offer benefits as a way to block the unions from being in control of the money and power that providing health and retirement benefits would give them.
and yes, there are plenty of legitimate stories of union featherbedding. There are equal numbers of stories of nepotism, incompetence, committee decision making and managers who made a career out of covering their ass rather than making decisions that describe the reality of GM management. As Tom Friedman recently noted—they have lost 74 billion in the past five years but no executive heads have rolled because of it. yet, somehow it is all the unions fault….i think not
