The UAW's Potential Loss At GM

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran an article focused on UAW head Ron Gettelfinger's dilemma regarding GM.

In particular, the piece's author, Kris Maher, noted,

"Accepting more concessions could also hurt the union's ability to grow at healthy companies. The UAW has been unable to organize U.S. workers at plants run by foreign auto makers. Accepting more cuts to GM wages and benefits would make organizing elsewhere even more difficult because the union would have little of value to offer nonunion workers, says John Russo, co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University."

This is a rather nuanced but important point. Especially with card check legislation on tap in Congress.

With little to show for decades of representing auto workers, now that the flagship US unionized car maker is essentially dead, Gettelfinger has, indeed, run out of good options.

Outside of bankruptcy, as Holman Jenkins noted in the same issue of the Journal, bondholders can hang tough, betting on Wonderboy's hesitancy to let a court strip the UAW of benefits which the Democratic Party is expected to guarantee.

In bankruptcy, of course, Gettelfinger's union loses its last vestige of pretense at providing anything for workers.

Tough choices, indeed. Maybe Ron should have retired last year.