Here are some of my thoughts:
Maybe Volkswagen can site interference by Government officials as a reason not to expand the Chattanooga plant?
I am both not surprised and surprised by this. If a company wants a union, why wouldn't the workers be ok with it but then again, many American workers don't want to associate with a union because they want a chance at management one day. This is so even though a third to half of them have the education to get promoted and half of them will do the right thing at the right time and the right place to make it. Or maybe its some Christian equivalent to karma ( that there are things for those whom they are given) that keeps people from protesting what wrongs them. Any takers on this?
Then again, maybe modern Mathematics and Psychology (what is passed on as Economics today) is a reasonable guide. Companies that are more expensive to run might be profitable operations, but no one will invest in a company that will pay lower dividends. As a result, you see what happens to cities like Detroit.
This sort of makes me wonder if the next major Republican policy push would be against unions instead of social security or health care. I could easily see this becoming something that could be a winner for Republicans in 2017 if they don't get in too over their heads like Clinton did with healthcare and Obama almost did with health care. Perhaps it would be something between a National Right to Work Law or a law that will allow states to no longer have unions recognized in their states.
On the other hand, not having unions that there really is no incentive for people to stay with he company and to stay on as people that are there just to do the job they have been hired to do for periods long enough to get good at it. Without this incentive, manufacturing might become a high-turnover lower-pay industry where people create a shoddy product on the way to their next job.
I still remember when I read the data in business school 40 years ago, that Unions outside monopolies and oligopolies did not increase wages
I would argue that the American economy at large is essentially an oligopoly and that the automobile industry is definitely so
Just barely. The big three of today (GM, Ford, and Toyota) don't command even a majority of the US market between them. We have a big seven at the moment (GM, Ford, Toyota, Chrysler, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai/KIA) with the Germans a potential eighth if they could merge or even cooperate. Now while it is possible to have an oligopoly with that many players, the production overcapacity in the auto industry is still too great for any of the players to have oligopic pricing power which severely limits their ability pass cost increases to consumers.
You couldve said this five years ago.
