| The UAW's Vanishing Act
Do the math. UAW membership fell to 557,099 in 2005, down from a peak of about 1,500,000 in 1969.
Now, with 84,800 UAW members deciding to take advantage of buyouts from GM, Delphi, and Ford, the UAW will shrink to about 472,300 -- less than a third of its 1969 membership. See the Detroit Free Press article.
Perhaps the UAW's strategy is to simply disappear. At least then we could feel sorry for them.
In fact, the UAW's only recent success has come with adding 40,000 Michigan home-based child-care providers. Now there's merger talk.
In the meantime, we have to realize that whatever power the UAW once had -- to negotiate good contracts, protect jobs, and affect the political process -- is mostly gone. Another good reason to keep them out of Holland and Zeeland. |
