The UAW's big, fat, pickle

The UAW is getting ready to make concessions so that Ford, GM, and Chrysler survive.  These changes include:

• Eliminating the JOBS bank, which pays workers to not work.  This will immediately get rid of 3,600 people who are getting money to sit on their asses.
• Delaying payment into a fund that will take care of healthcare costs for retirees.
• They have already given lower level benefits and pay to entry level workers.

Overall, these changes will spur the end of unionized auto labor in the United States.  With these cuts in benefits, newly hired UAW workers will be making effectively the same amount of money as non-union workers in places like Alabama and Texas who work for Toyota and Hyundai.  What incentive is there to keep a union, when this is the case?  Also, the employees of the Asian automakers are eligible for bonuses, something the UAW workers are not.

The union is caught in a catch-22.  Make no concessions, the carmakers go under, the union is gone.  Make concessions, reduce the need for the union, the union is gone.