GM says UAW Will Not Strike Delphi

GM CEO Rick Wagoner has said that he does not expect the UAW to strike against Delphi. He says the UAW, Delphi, and GM all know that it is in nobody's interest to strike right now. He has more confidence in the UAW than I do. There was a factory nearby that closed a few months ago, idling quite a few workers, and those workers spent the last week the shop was open on strike, thus losing their last paycheck. I don't recall if they were UAW or some other union but they lost their last check in a pointless and futile gesture. The problem is that unions have power and power corrupts. We need to consider, not what is best for the rank and file, but what is best for the union leadership if we are going to attempt to predict what the union will do. In this case I do not know, but I do not share Rick Wagoner's confidence in the sensibility of the union leadership.

There is other news for GM this year though, that I did not know.

And get this: This year, for the first time in its 98-year history, GM expects to sell more vehicles outside the United States than inside the United States, as much a testament to its success overseas as its troubles at home.
"There's a lot of good things that happen if we're successful around the world," Wagoner said. "We're long past this idea that, gee, we should only be good in the U.S and shouldn't invest somewhere else.
"That may have been a view when we had closed markets and regional competition, but that's not the way the game is played today. We may long for the past, but it doesn't make the past come back."

I would feel a lot better about that if GM's American numbers weren't down so far.

I do feel bad for GM on another score. After 9-11 they offered astonishing deals on cars simply to keep the economy moving, and America showed no thanks at all.