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Comment by chmod600 | Hacker News Reader

Is this just a final battle for the remaining scraps of money in a dying industry? Or is this a real, substantive negotiation that will push the industry to a better place?

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It's not scraps of a dying industry if every time you die you get tens of billions in bailout money. [1]

1: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wha...

This only furthers the point being made.

Why are we keeping them on life support?

> Why are we keeping them on life support?

A million auto industry workers is a lot of votes.

Because Amercains bitch about "We can't build anything anymore" otherwise? Because a ready and well-practiced, upskilled workforce is important to a country, in everything to thr economy to wartime preparedness? Because Americans will continue to demand cars, and it seems pertinant to allow at least a path or two for a secure, national brand?

This is a tech forum. What happens when networking equipment only comes from other nations (that won't subsidise their industry either)? We end up having Huawei as the economic choice. A brand known for having deep ties to a political party that America is increasingly likely to enter at least a cold war with.

You're asking why supporting home-grown is bad like the last 4 decades of offshoring wasn't destroying what remains of middle Americans.

The big 3 made over $21 billion in profits in the first half of this year. This isn't about fighting over scraps, it's about fighting for a fair share of the wealth produced by workers.

That's gross profit, which doesn't mean cash.

The profit was about 4b which, okay let's give everyone in UAW a share of that and... Oh it's so small that it doesn't fix anything?

There's also exec comp, stock buybacks, dividends, etc. If you believe unions can help shift wage inequality, net profits isn't the only bucket to draw from.

The big 3 also had $354 billion in debt. Will workers pay that down too?

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