They need to stop making cars and come to California and get jobs guarding prisons.

Until some clever hedge fund or private equity company scoops them up then car companies have almost zero incentive to do anything at all for labor. The threat has always been "we strike you lose". But now car companies can say "So what, some insurance company will buy us and take us private and fire all your asses as we cash out." So perhaps one thing UAW can do is apply pressure through their own pension and benefit funds directly.

The brevity of the strike says everything about this situation, and really how outdated the strike itself is as a tactic, anymore. A work slowdown is probably way more effective than an out-and-out strike, in that the workers aren't hung out on the line, but they can keep the pressure on management. But a host of innovative Labor tactics went out with the Knights of Labor and the Wobblies, unfortunately. Maybe they'll be rediscovered out of necessity.

A work slowdown is probably way more effective than an out-and-out strike

A major part of the situation that GM and the UAW are in is because the US auto worker could not possibly work any slower. If they were producing cars as efficiently and with the same build quality as their fellow american workers at Honda and Toyota, there would be no need for a strike in the first place.

It isn't that "the US auto worker couldn't work any slower" as you yourself acknowledge when you state "their fellow american workers at Honda and Toyota". GM, Ford and Chrystler are failing because they aren't listening to what the consumer wants, they're trying to tell the consumers what they want and the consumers don't care. They put out badly designed cars that aren't what people want even if they were designed well. The consumer says "I want a small to mid-sized car that gets good mileage and performance and is safe" and the American car companies say "Have you seen the new Hummer?"

They could easily become good, profitable companies again, but they'd have to get rid of the current management and that won't happen because current management is too busy trying to place the blame anywhere else.

The problem isn't that U.S. Carmakers didn't give consumers what they wanted, but they failed to anticipate what the consumer WOULD want. U.S. Consumers loved SUVs, and US automakers rode that wave to a number of profitable years. The failure of management, and most management out there, is to continue to succeed you need to compete with the most succesful product you have. Lazy thinking leads to lazy results.

When lines would stuff crushed beer cans inside the doors, screw with the primer paint, mis tighten bolts and so on on the premise that if they piss off the workers the workers will screw with your cars. Of course Yanks are too dim to ever get so sick of crummy quality to put two and two together. And ever lower the bar goes. Until we're where we are now - we all pretty much accept that owning an American car more than 3 years is a crapshoot. It might run maybe not. Don't finance it more than 36 months in any case since you clearly don't want to pay for a car that has a good chance of not surviving its own loan.

The real winners in the UAW-GM strike are the Democrat presidential candidates who will not have to take sides at tonight's debate at Dartmouth College. Edwards and Kucinich would both unequivically support the union, but the rest have been performing a balancing act between labor and business. Whoever the democratic candidate is will need the support of big labor. Even if unions are dwindling, once they get behind a candidate they come through with feet on the ground in the communities for knocking on doors, leafleting, phone banks, rallies and more.

Regarding the strike. I see it as theater. As contracts go, this one had no gains for workers. The best way for union leaders to sell this to their members is to act militant and throw a two-day strike that had minimal impact on GM and minimal impact on the union's $500-million-plus strike fund. That way they can say that they got a better deal than what the company originally offered.

By they way, the details of the strike fund and the cost of the the strike will be in the UAW's Nov.-Dec. Solidarity magazine (or Jan.-Feb. is somehow the contract news pre-empts the annual finance report).

1. North American auto workers are not slow. They are the most productive industrial workers in the history of the world.

2. American cars are not unreliable. The fact that our cars are so much better than they used to be actually hurts car sales, because people do not need new cars as often as they used to.

3. The UAW never has been a corrupt, unprogressive union. The UAW always has backed free trade and technology, and it always has looked after its members.

You posters who repeat old cliches are at least fifteen years behind the times. And those who assume the UAW is anything like the Teamsters or Mineworkers or the Steelworkers, you are just wrong.

Timbuktom, I agree with most of what you had to say. American workers are among the most productive ever -- although that's partly because of the technology that's in place. American workers are the most productive in the world because we work more hours. The French are the most productive per hour. At least that was the case a year or two ago. The French also get way more time off than American workers.

The French are the most productive per hour.

A thousand conservatives' heads just imploded.

Getting money up front is always better than a pay raise. I would happily work for minimum wage plus a cut of the profits of GM!

On the other hand, the UAW has sold its birthright for a cup of pottage! Dumb bastards!