The unions knew the score. They new as well as everybody else that the gov wasn't going to let them go down. Why take a pay cut when the gov will for sure bail you out. Would you take a pay cut knowing the gov was going to bail you out? Of course not. To what rob said it's the legacy debt that is costing them. I mean face it these companies have been in business for a long long time. That could equate to a lot of retirees. Yes the unions negotiated the retirements for some long ago. So even if they changed things now it wouldn't effect that. Just new hires. Those people make good wages yes. Unions usually help the industry as a whole whether a union shop or not. Non union shops must raise their wages to a certain level to discourage organization and to attract employees. Another thing, the gov bailed out the banking industry for their poor practices so why not the auto industry also.
You hear nothing about management either. You think any of them are going to give up their overbloated salaries? I think not. It's way to easy to blame the working man. Companies that large I bet have an incredible upper management force which probably isn't needed. Let's get rid of some of them instead of the people that actually do all the work.
The only way the auto industry is going to get out of the mess they are in is some form of bankruptcy. Good thing is they can get out of some of the retirement debts and other contracts, including union ones. Bad news government may end up paying the retirement debt, read tax payers. Also loss of jobs and plants. But hey if that's what it takes to get back to being profitable building the cars the gov wants, not the people, so be it. I say pull the stupid cafe standards and drop the save the earth global warming bull and let the industry build cars people will buy. Nobody wants a hybrid that won't pay for itself or an unreliable unproven electric car. Last I looked there isn't any place to plug the damn thing in at the parking lot.