Did the UAW break the American Auto Companies?

One of the biggest problems of Unions is their reluctance to change and keep up with the times. Some say that the reason Ford, GM, and Chrysler have fallen on such hard times is that the Unions would not give in to change. The change they refer to is the fact that Union people were making too much money, and would not accept lower wages. They say that the American Companies were forced to pay those high Union wages while Foreign companies got by with paying much less.

The truth is that European companies have Unions which are much stronger than American Unions. The Asian companies may pay less in wages, but even they don't have to shoulder the tremendous expense of health care. 30% of the cost of workers at General Motors is for health care (and growing); it's about half that much in other countries. If you subtract the health care expense that American companies have to pay, and especially if you compare the cost of living for Asian countries, then auto workers are paid similarly in most of the industry. When the manufacturers moved to places without a Union, or a much downsized Union, they were just trying to save money on the back of the workers. Here is another reason we need Universal Health care.

The American Car Manufacturers problem has been Engineering. Somewhere they decided that they would make cheap cars instead of cars that work well. The car makers actually shared many aspects of manufacturing and personnel matters with the UAW, but they never let Engineering decisions be shared.