Not Your Father's Auto Industry Job

It was over before most of us even noticed, the GM workers didn't get the kind of wage increase and benefits that used to be associated with the skilled jobs of the GM of the past. They got a bit of a shell game. Their trust for health care in the future, to the tune of $50 million, was set up at the cost of existing commitments. You probably are saying 'Whoa, that can't be right.'

Sadly, the insistence on making cars Americans didn't trust and wouldn't buy has been passed on to the workers.

Two decades ago, a national auto industry strike likely would have continued for weeks or months. This time, the General Motors walkout was over almost before it got rolling, thus little more than the union's symbolic last gasp at influence. In the end, contract talks came down to deciding to live together or to perish together, and both union and management picked life.

Health care promises that once seemed manageable are these days unbearable financial anchors on old-line U.S. manufacturers such as GM. Skyrocketing health costs equal higher prices and, over time, fewer jobs.

Had the union demanded – and the automaker agreed to – benefits that any actuary would deem nearly impossible to fulfill, the downward spiral would only continue.
Yesterday's agreement, if ratified, would create a health care trust to remove more than $50 billion owed to union retirees for health care from the books.

Workers and retirees would receive their current coverage until the trust is put in place. GM would use stock, cash and other assets to fund the trust.

Equally significant, the union also dropped its push for job security, which would have greatly complicated the automaker's plan to eliminate 30,000 jobs and close many plants.

The story extends to a lot of families whose long years of work have been suddenly ended with a 'wham, bam, thankyou ma'am'.

If auto industry leaders show any of that wisdom supposedly earned by their boards by the monster salaries, they will start putting together dependable autos that use a different kind of fuel than the old Middle Eastern variety. Will they do it? The suspense is killing a lot of their employees.