Does The UAW Still Have A Place In The Fabric Of The American Workforce?

An autoworkers' labor union is still definitely needed, but not in the way it was used decades ago. Labor union heads/officials should not hold seats on the executive boards for automakers. Partially b/c automakers answer to shareholders, not to labor unions.

Automakers in US - in the past - had been forced to continue production of un-popular vehicles only to provide active work to union workers. The effectively caused a glut of under-valued product to be produced & thrown to the streets - where huge price discounts/incentives further de-valued slow selling models & then further eroding consumer confidence & general interests in the overall available lineups. Automakers today need to adjust as necessary - as early as possible - to changes in competition & consumer tastes/interests. Bowing to labor union demands hurts the entire corporate organization as a whole - when stockholder demands are factored into the annual grand scheme of things.

I think you will find that the Unions tend to have significant holdings of the stock of their worker's companies - especially in their retirement funds. Since they rarely represent a large portion of the board - having the unions on board for future products can be a plus in large organizations like GM.

I think that Companies like GM and FORD have spent too much time producing cars that appeal to the Lowest common denominator - producing adequate but hardly exhilarating cars that seem to fade quickly - even if they are popular at the start of production. That may be the curse of playing to the mass market - as cars from Toyota and Nissan and others fall into the same barrel. Yet - Opel and Holden - not longer big for GM or out of GM - were examples of how they could actually produce good cars from the common parts bin.

Unfortunately - since cars are not selling that well - it is highly unlikely that GM would take a chance - to introduce a Stunning RIVIERA - again. THey produced several Cadillac concepts that surely would have done wonders for sales of that make - and yet - nothing came of that. Still - GM did produce the Omega platform for the CT6 - which is Very innovative - far lighter than anything it that class - and could have been a game changer IF the resulting car actually had the style of some of those concepts instead of re-stating the now old and tires Arts and Science styling whose time passed on at least one car generation ago.

However - the existence of Unions for workers remains a needed force to prevent those boards from even considering decisions without concern for its workers - which is why unions came to be in the first place. WE now live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people are no covered by Pensions unless you work for the government (Who fails to properly fund them) - and these people are not prepared for retirement in any way. Most of these people should have a Million Dollars saved for their retirement - to live reasonable like they always did - but most have less than 10% of that.

No they are not needed...

The UAW should be restricted to negotiating contracts and should be barred from all political activity. Moreover, all 50 states should be right-to-work so that the union would have to EARN membership and that members could leave the union if they want.