Can The UAW Survive?

The Detriot News reports:

The facts are chilling for a union once considered the paragon of muscle and influence in the American labor movement.

Since its high point in 1970, the UAW's membership has fallen from 1.6 million active workers to 557,000 last year -- a drop that reflects the Big Three's decline in U.S. market share from 85 percent to its current level of 53 percent.

The union has been unable to organize any of the transplant factories built in the United States by Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., and other overseas automakers.

In the past year, GM and Ford have announced plans to close dozens of plants and chop a total of 60,000 U.S. hourly workers from their payrolls. Last fall, the UAW agreed to once-unthinkable concessions that force retirees to assume some health-care costs and require active workers to forgo a wage increase to help pay their medical bills.

But no event shook the union more than Delphi's bankruptcy filing last October. Delphi -- a former division of GM -- is seeking a radical restructuring of its U.S. operations that would cut more than 20,000 jobs and slash $27-an-hour wages to $12.50.

"There's little doubt that the global economy has turned a blowtorch on Detroit," said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California-Berkeley. "At stake is nothing less than the future of American manufacturing."

Union industries aren't the future.