The above depiction of the union's power may be true today, but wait awhile, when the union has driven the manufacturers out of business, there will no longer be a union. The unions have to know when to give, their members have enjoyed a good number of years of prosperity, now it is time to give back to ensure the viability of an entire industry. But they won't.
metalman.

Well said metalman!
Give and take.

this depiction also explains how we have priced most of our products out of the world market. North Americans are the only ones that have enough discretionary funds to buy the high end product Made In Canada.

We want the best income and the cheapest products. So we have unions driving up the unit cost through excessive wages and benefits. I read in an article about the potential failure of GM and Chrysler, that the average GM worker earns with all benefits including retirement package about $75 per hour.

We cannot have it both ways, either the best wages or being able to sell globally.

Oh bad unions bad bad bad, you have caused all this financial mess. Give up your pay, work for free and be happy about it. Lets all be happy little slaves and give all your money to the captains of industry.. I am amazed just how biased and uniformed people in general can be. You folks amaze me.

first, unions are not bad, just too strong for a viable sustainable economy. They were and still are a needed evil.

second, I never said work for free. Even slaves get fed and housed.

Third, if you are employed, you are a slave like the rest of us. The only ones not a slave are the business owners (Captains of Industry).

fourth, I am not uniformed, I am informed and have had too much pride to submit to the collective (Union). I have the ability of independent thoughts and I am also self actualizing.

pride to submit to the collective (Union). So you let everyone else do your fighting for you. Yes there can be some problems with unions but where do you think we would be over all with out them. I think you need a little history.

seamutt - no use tossing pearls before swine; just wasting your time!

"Auto Workers Crush Manufacturers."

or

"Manufacturers Crush Auto Workers."

They are both to blame. Greed, bad management, poor engineering, cheap components, vehicles that self-destruct as soon as the warranty expires, not honouring warranties...and so forth.

I think it is less the fault of the workers than that of management (mis-management, if you prefer).

If you give the workers low quality parts it doesn't matter how carefully the vehicle is assembled: it will still be a low quality result.

I am on the side of the workers. May they find some way to save their jobs, even if it means more sacrifice.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that over 80 percent of new car puchases involved financing. Since financing has been unavailable (or expensive) the job of selling ANY new car has become difficult. Even Toyota has taken a big hit.
I hear a lot of criticism of the big 3 that looks like a bunch of bull to me. People say they need to make cars that people want, like hybrids but hybrid fever was a response to the run up of fuel prices. Now toyota has too many hybrids that no one wants. The big three have consistantly had cars in the top selling ranks and in motor trends car/truck of the year category.
If you dont like American cars, good for you but dont pretend that the big three went down because their cars were too expensive and they sucked. I suspect it had more to do with spiralling labour costs and bad management.

Once again people have taken the miss-information and accepted it as true. In any product sold by any of the so-called North American car manufacturers, the total cost of the labour involved in the production of any car only amounts to about four percent of the total cost of the vehicles. Blaming the workers for greed is simply yet another ploy by the wealthy to make the worker appear to be the bad guys in the failures of their companies. The problems lie with how the North American automakers do business not the average working person's wages. Once again the public (and sadly most of the posters here) have accepted the explainations of the corporations as true when in fact it is anything but. Shame on those who blame the workers instead of the wealthy corporations who have caused the downfall of our economy. Please have the courage and ability to find out the real truth before you jump on the bandwagon of drivel spewed to make the public tow the corporate line.

Just so I get it right, a Union and a Company reach an agreement on wages, benefits etc, and they call it a Collective Agreement which both parties have ratified by there principles.
When the Company is properous it is simply because they are a well Managed Company but as soon as they are in trouble it is because of the big bad Union.
The Collective Agreement only covers a small part of a Business Plan. You will not find any mention of Million dollar Excutive wages, bonuses or the Corprate jet in a Collective Agreement.

I guess if the Companys can't live up to there Agreements they can always have the Goverment rip them up and impose a "fair Agreement"

Caranmacil:"If you dont like American cars, good for you but dont pretend that the big three went down because their cars were too expensive and they sucked..."

Representatives from the Big Three have admitted - in the last little while - that they have made great progress in catching up with the leaders in quality (Toyota and Honda).

If they were not behind, why did they do that?

They finally pulled up their socks and stopped pretending that they did not have any problems.

Perhaps a little too late?

You guys are assuming from my opinion post that I am anti union, well you are reading into the comments a little too closely, and finding your own conclusions. If you care to cut through the crap, and look at the issue, regardless of how they got there, or whose fault it is that they are in trouble, the fact is that the big three manufacturers have to become competitive, and now! Yes, GM, Chrysler, and to an extent Ford, and their bloated, overpaid corporate structures are responsible for the mess they are in now, but how would you have them turn things around now? It is obvious that they now have no choice but to cut costs to stay afloat, they cannot in any way cut back on quality or performance, the only avenue of savings available in the short term is to cut wages and all the employee related costs such as pension and medical. The cutting HAS to include the white collar and the top executives too. The real tragedy here, is that the U.S. and CDN. governments are prepared to BAIL out GM, who in return are going to eliminate 47,000 jobs if they even survive with the welfare payments. WHY on earth is the government handing out cash to save a corporate giant if they are just going to turn around and get rid of people anyway. Is it not the intention of the bailouts to save the company in order to save jobs????? By the way, I am neither pro union nor pro corporation. The big three automakers have to become as efficient as the Japanese assembly plants that already exist on North American soil.
metalman.