happy autoworkers

[Doug Henwood]

I had a long chat with a guy who does union education, mainly for auto and
steel, last night. He painted a picture of a very happy workforce, with
25-year-olds pulling down $75k and senior skilled crafts guys (they are
almost all guys, aren't they?) making over $100k. This would make the Flint
strikers look pretty anomalous. But he argued that GM's failure to downsize
aggressively in the early 1980s was a missed opportunity - had they done
something like Ford, which cut its workforce nearly in half in 18 months,
and then cut in the UAW as a junior partner in jointness - they'd be in
much better shape today.

Any thoughts on this?

Doug