you think the auto worker unions killed the midwest?
The industry is still afloat despite foreign car companies eating US car company's lunch (because of poor quality on the US side, and that's not on the linepeople), and many people in those industries are getting proper paychecks.
The only difference I see in a non-unionized auto industry is even lower wages and less time off. Unions didn't cause bad car design.
I don't know about that. It's pretty old history now, but you might want to learn about what happened at NUMMI versus most other American manufacturing plants at the time (early 80's). Plenty of blame to go around, with management, union rules, and workers, but there are vivid tales of workers doing things resulted in very bad quality. [1]
Today, it seems pretty clear that police unions in some cities are a big blocker when it comes to meaningful reforms.
Which is not to say I'm anti-union, but there are some cautionary tales. It's mixed. Scorched-earth tactics (on either side) are not the answer.
No possible effort by a steel workers union is going to stop globalization from hollowing out US manufacturing. That's a problem that has to be tackled at a higher level.
Old technology meant steel coming out of PA was expensive. Steel should have presented a united front (labor and employers) demanding Carter and Reagan address dumping and drive for modernization --even if that meant fewer workers in the future --but at least the industry would remain.
After US announced 30% tariffs on imported solar panels, a Chinese company said they'd build a factory in the US [1].
We should demand fair reciprocal trade. None of this WTO, promises we put up with.
The panel tariffs are a problem because it's possible the negative impact on non-manufacturing (solar installations, etc) will cancel out the benefits from the tariffs :( But yes, there are definitely things the government could have done to protect local manufacturing. I'm still not sure the steel industry could've been saved. At this point I think the real failure is that the government didn't do enough to help people trapped in dying rust belt cities. Unions can't bear the blame for that.
Not saying that unions are perfect, but the US auto industry problems are much deeper than unions. These unions are just navigating on a difficult situation that was not caused by workers. Viewing them as the cause for the troubles of the auto and steel industry is just stupid, plainly coming from anti-labor mindset.
The longshoremen union is a great example of a union that stops technology.
The auto workers and steel workers unions didn't help the Midwest stay afloat either.