UAW is Pissing in the Pot.

The Democrats, of course, couldn't care less. The right-thinkers consider it a deal-breaker.

The UAW has a pretty ridiculous level of commitment from the Big 3 auto makers in Detroit. The average hourly wage of a laborer, considering benefits and agreements, is $74/hr. Toyota's package is something in the low $40/hr range.

My friends, there is NO way to have a competitive price structure on finished goods if your personnel overhead costs are DOUBLE what the competition has. No small part of the problem: they have a pool of several thousand workers for each company, paying around $30/hr just to sit on their tails, put out of a job due to advances in technology (and weak management pimp-hands at the contract table).

The union is going to drive the companies to bankruptcy (which incidentally is where they belong) and then, according to Speaker Pelosi, the managment would have an unfair advantage over labor. You know what I say about that advantage? Good. Maybe management will grow a pair and tell the UAW to kick bricks when the contracts are renegotiated.

Otherwise, Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai are all going to get some pretty sweet prices on used auto manufacturing equipment.

Regarding the "bail-out" proposals for the auto makers: $25B three ways is just over $8B each. That sounds like a lot of money, right? Well, it does, until you consider that GM has $16B in cash right now, and they are projected to last <1 year on that.

And the unions have no intentions of conceding ANYTHING.