But don't you think that having pay that is well above it's competitors was a contributing factor to the downfall of the Big 3?

The average UAW worker earns, after benefits, roughly $70/hr, whereas the average non-UAW worker earns $35/hr. With millions of workers putting in 40hr workweeks, that's a lot of extra overhead. That's not to say that it was the only factor, because Detroit was making bad decisions when it comes to cars.

That's not to say that businesses don't abuse their power, but to vacate any blame from the Unions is also a very bad assumption to make.

Raw labor to build a car costs about 30 man-hours per car. At a $30/hr difference between UAW and non-UAW employees, that's about a $900 difference per car, or $2.6 billion dollars in 2008 for GM alone (GM sold 2.98 million cars last year).

But more than just the simple loss of $2.6b (or about $5.0b between the Big 3 in 08) last year due to bloated union employee costs: the flexibility of the American union worker is very poor, and costs the company far more, due to Union regulations about what their employees can, and cannot do. Toyota, and other non-union companies can retool their employees as needed, giving them far more flexibility and less overall overhead (and better quality) due to their methods. So union issues run deeper than mere hourly wages.

I absolutely agree that the Big 3's issue is not the unions souly, but it's a significant contributor. Why is it that the Big 3 can do so well overseas, and do so horrible in the states with the same cars?

Their nothing wrong with Unions unless they get too powerful like the UAW and Teachers Unions. That being said you can't blame all the Big Three's problems on unions. They had/have bad management for decades now and their where pussies and caved in to all the unions demands.

They are good as far as good old boys get-together orgs for a potential raise, etc but when the force the corp to crawl to a halt or shut down then I wholeheartedly hate them. (My grandfather was a TEAMSTER btw)

Even looking at sports, football is the most popular sports business, ATM. Its also no coincidence that they have the weakest union as well.

Don't know about US, but here in Belgium (in the south region of the country that is called Wallonia), they are way too powerfull and they have ruined the entire economy (... they are associated to their big friends, the socialist governement - 30 years and counting).

Now, it is the reign of "the little employees"....

I met several entrepreneurs who gave up and left abroad...

... now I live (and work) in the North of the country... more liberal, more entrepreneur, more wealth...

Why is that not a coincidence?  How are unions hurting baseball and basketball?

I agree.

Although in the late 80's early 90's the auto union workers were lazy.  Lately though... the vast majority of union workers are hard working.

All Unions do is basically get what most people think they should.  They pool their assets together to get healthcare privately through there company and many other benefits.

There are some negatives to it sure.  The positives outweigh them.  The real trouble the unions and autoworkers have is they hate each other.  Rather then work together... they both make their jobs harder for each other.

its simple they used to server a purpose but like all big groups they got a little power, liked it and wanted more...and more....and more

and now they would rather die then give some of it up......its sad really

Not... really.  I mean.  It's basic buisness.

Say I work for you... and I get paid a lot... while you throw the rest of the money down the drain....

then you come to me to renegotiate my wages.

Why should I give you some of my money... I KNOW you're going to throw down the drain... since you've yet to fix the core problems with the buisness?  We're still going to go out of buisness... and the money i'm making vs the money your keeping isn't even going to make that much of a difference.

It's like saying that the Phoenix Suns are losing money so Shaq should give back some of his salary.  Shaq's money isn't going to do shit to save the company. It's not big enough.

Besides.  The unions have been making concessions for YEARS.  Long before the economic crisis.

Unions are valuable to workers. I personally believe they are important to consider for any businessman. However, I will agree that they have somewhat overstepped their boundaries in certain cases, such as the American Auto Industry. However, in most other cases, they do exactly what they are supposed to do.