I work as a city manager, so I find this topic especially interesting. I don't have an opinion on it yet though, so I want to learn a bit more on Detroit's situation and come back to it.
People blaming the UAW are a bit off though. German auto workers are actually much better compensated than American ones. American car companies have just always been very inefficient and slow to adapt. Poorly designed vehicles, poor quality and ridiculous levels of redundancy (To think that Chrysler's new Pentastar engine replaced something like 6 or 8 crappy, different V6's used throughout their company line!!?!?!).
Strong Unions (or well-compensated non-union workers) are very good for the overall economy by re-distributing wealth and creating balance. The major problem in today's western economy is that for decades manufacturing has been moving to Asia. You can't constantly be funneling money from your country into another for all of your manufactured goods and expect it not to eventually destroy your economy. Western countries desperately need to tariff countries where manufacturing workers are not well compensated in order to create a fair global economy. The problem is not that workers in the US (or elsewhere) are too well paid, but that workers in other countries are not paid well enough. Executives for large corporations have managed to convince many in the public that US workers are spoiled as an excuse to use near-slave labour in other countries. US voters should be demanding trade tariffs so that UAW members are not looked at as getting too much, but rather so that other workers in other manufacturing sectors can also be making as much.
