AllThatJazz:

Unions are most definitely NOT the answer to our problems. Just look at GM and Ford. Those companies are bleeding money, in large part, because they gave the union workers such ridiculous benefits. I recall reading that $1500 of the price of every GM vehicle goes to pensions and retiree benefits, whereas with Toyota, it's only $500 of every vehicle. And people wonder why the Big Three can't compete in today's market. It's because they gave away the store to the unions in the 70's and 80's.

Oh bullshit, Apparently, what you know comes from post-1980 revisionist propaganda. Having grown up in the steel region in a management family, the problem is not what the unions demanded. It was that the companies and the unions both pursued a strategy whereby wage increases were traded for health benefits and limited job security. Both sides made rationale decisions based on calculations that failed to predict the massive increase in health costs.

As a result, companies go under not because they are paying labor too much, but because they have a backlog of health expenses for retired workers that have increased expotentially-- all that money isn't going into labor or retiree's pockets, it's going to the medical care industry. The Big Three can't compete because they have to pay health benefits that foreign companies dont because health care is a public expense.

Incidentally, the expert in this field on the Fray is Run, I'd suggest checking out his stuff-- he's made a lifelong study of it.