Automobile Production and Unions

Texas has always been a right-to-work state. Back in 1975, during my senior year in high school, I worked for HEB, the largest grocer in Central Texas, as a stock boy. One night, I made the mistake of telling a co-worker that I had a homework assignment to write about unions. Next thing I knew I was hauled to a back room and interrogated by a manager for "unionizing". That was my first brush with Texas hatred for unions.

Over the years, unions haven't meant much to me, living in Texas. Since I write software, I am not in an industry to be impacted by unions. I've watched the demise of American unions, but it was never personal. I hear American capitalists heap blame on unions for keeping American companies from being competitive, and I've always wondered if they were right. An article in Forbesshows it isn't true, at least not for German auto companies. It turns out that German car companies turn out more cars than American companies while paying more than twice as much, on average, as American companies. Nearly every auto worker in Germany is a member of one union. And they almost never strike. Because German auto companies and German auto workers cooperate to make high-quality products that are in demand. So it's a win-win. Great pay for workers; profits for the company. Lot's of BMWs and Mercedes and Wolkswagens that people want.

And CEO pay? Since the CEOs of Mercedes, BMW and Wolswagen earned more than the CEO of GM, I guess the unions did hurt them.