End of the Road: Is the Auto Industry Dead?

With U.S. car makers billions of dollars in the red, jobs vanishing and factories closing, the industry's problems may be insurmountable.

Editor's note: As politicians in Washington debate the future of the U.S. auto industry, we are reposting this article from the September 2006 issue of Labor Notes. It spells out the how the Big 3 got into the mess they are in today, and what the UAW -- together with the rest of the labor movement -- needs to do to get us out.
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Unions in steel and rubber followed suit with similar contracts and, to a lesser extent, other blue-collar workers such as miners, telephone workers, truckers, and electrical workers all attempted to follow the UAW's lead. The pattern of steady wage increases together with health and retirement benefits stretched well beyond heavily unionized industries, setting a higher standard for all the nation's employers, union and non-union alike.
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Employers from meatpacking to airlines to education demanded and got wage cuts. In Michigan, the hospital workers union reported that every hospital it bargained with in 1982 used the argument "GM took a wage freeze." Companies used economic hard times to force a redistribution of power in their own favor.
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Chrysler took outsourcing to a new level by pioneering "modular production" in the U.S. At its Jeep plant in Toledo, body work, chassis and paint -- considered the core of auto assembly--will soon be performed on-site by non-Chrysler workers at lower pay.
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What will America look like if most workers earn Wal-Mart, instead of General Motors, wages? For those without a four year college degree - i.e., about 70 percent of the labor force - average wages (adjusted for inflation) have stagnated or fallen for the last 30 years, hovering under $15 today. Manufacturing jobs paid wages no better than the economy-wide average when Henry Ford was perfecting the assembly line, but by the end of the 20th century they were about 25 percent above average, in no small part due to unions like the UAW.
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A lot more interesting info at...
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/107489/end_of_the_road:_is_the_auto_industry_dead/?page=1