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According to CNN Money, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union began a strike against GM facilities at 1100ET this morning. Apparently 73,000 UAW workers picketed GM plants and has rendered 59 GM plants idle. This does not bode well for the United States economy (at least the Automotive sector).
According to the article, [GM] management had been unwilling to address the unions' key concerns on job security for the members at GM. The UAW workers had been working since last Monday without a contract because their current one had expired. UAW bosses had wanted some sort of concession on job security for UAW workers as well as other concessions regarding to pay and benefits for workers. One of the key goals for GM, however, is shifting an estimated $51 billion in future health care costs for retirees and their family members to union-controlled trust funds.
Currently GM is having a difficult time competing with nonunion companies such as Honda and Toyota and the UAW is certainly not making it easy for GM to try and compete. One of the many reasons that American motor companies are failing to make headway against foreign competitors is that the UAW has hamstrung them. If a company is losing money and unable to compete because of high overhead, why does the UAW think that its employees deserve guaranteed job security? If the company can't pay its employees without losing money why should the stockholders (and the American economy by proxy) be forced to eat those costs?
Unions, especially in high-profile industries such as the Automotive and Manufacturing sectors, are doing their best to destroy the American economy while pretending to actually care about the employees. How much job security does an employee have if the employer goes bankrupt? The UAW was threatening to bankrupt GM earlier by trying to prevent GM from shedding its money-hemorrhaging Delphi plants. Forcing companies to continue to pay for outrageous benefits packages and to continue to pay sub-par employees is a bane to large companies everywhere. Union bosses seem to lack a basic understanding of how to run a profitable business. What baffles me is that employees willingly pay union dues to allow the union to bankrupt their business and cause them to lose their jobs. Somehow I don't think the employees are getting their money's worth.
Personally I hope GM sticks to their guns and tells the UAW to actually do some legitimate negotiating or to go away. It would be terrible for GM go bankrupt because of the damage it would do to both the American and Detroit economy, but if that's what it takes for people to realize that the UAW and other large unions are destroying American industry than perhaps it might ultimately be a good thing.