The GOP meme has always been that Unions kill industries. They hold up the American Auto Industry as the prime example.
It was not the Unions that has destroyed the American Industry but the greed of the American Auto Executives.
Up until the 80s American car buyers had to order their new cars from a la carte menus. With or without such things as radios, heaters, defrosters, seat covers, air conditioning, power steering, and until mandated by Congress without seat belts.
In the 60s-70s these pesky Japanese thought of a way to cut costs. They would not offer a al carte shopping for their but would offer only fully loaded car models. You know as the cars now a days. They had one more trick, all the cars on the lots were the same. All had the same options, radios, heaters, defrosters, seat covers, air conditioning, power steering, and same price tag. You could walk onto a Japanese car deanship and pick any car on the lot of the same model and the price was the same.
While over at the American Auto Dealership every car had a different price. That is how they could list a car for a price to bring you in only to find that price was for a specific car (specific lot number) which never seem to exist, "The old bait and switch."
Well Japanese were kicked Detroit's asses. American buyers wanted cars that were fully loaded without the price gouging of the American Dealerships for air conditioning or power steering, or a heater, or defroster. You could still buy a used car in Minnesota that was ordered new in Florida without either a heater or defroster, yet have air conditioning. Who knew?
But the GOP meme that the Unions were to blame for the failing car sales was just to easy to sell to the American public.
In the 80s the American Auto Industry had a rude awaiting. Americans did not like American autos or the way of buying them.
Americans liked the Japanese Auto Industry approach to buying cars. Same models with the same options, fully loaded, and all were the same price. Did that catch on? Check the way you buy a car now.
Before everyone goes crazy we studied this issue in our economic classes in the 80s. The Japanese Auto Industry was kicking American Auto Industry on every issue. American Auto Industry market shares were dropping and faced total elimination.
What did the American Auto Industry do? Chrysler asks for and gets a government bailout.
General Motors began responding first to the high gas prices, by downsizing most of their models by 1977. In 1979, the second oil price spike occurred, precipitated by political events in Iran, resulting in the 1979 energy crisis. By 1980, the economy slid into turmoil, with high inflation, high unemployment, and high interest rates. The automakers suffered large operating losses. Chrysler was hurt most severely and in 1979 received a bailout from the federal government in the form of $1.5 billion in loan guarantees, one quick fix was a Detroit-built version of their then-new French (Simca) economy car, the Horizon. As a result of its financial difficulties, Chrysler sold its British and French subsidiaries, Rootes Group and Simca.
That was just for starters, the crap continued:
As bold and confident as the Big Three automakers were in the 1950s and 1960s, the American auto makers in the 1970s and 1980s stumbled badly, going from one engineering, manufacturing or marketing disaster to another. Ford reaped a public relations nightmare when it was revealed that the Ford Pinto's gas tank was vulnerable to exploding when hit from behind. Ford knew about this vulnerability but did not design any safeguards in order to save a few dollars per vehicle. They rationalized that the cost of lawsuits would be less than the cost of redesigning the car. GM had a string of miscues starting with the Chevrolet Vega, which developed a reputation for rapidly rusting and having major problems with the aluminum engine. Cadillac damaged their reputation when the four-cylinder Cadillac Cimarron was introduced in 1981 (a gussied-up Chevrolet Cavalier at twice the price) and the "V8-6-4" engine didn't work as advertised. GM's reputation was also damaged when it revealed in 1977 that they were installing Chevrolet engines in Oldsmobiles, and lawsuits from aggrieved Oldsmobile owners followed. Likewise litigation ensued when a trio of diesel engines, designed from gasoline engines and used in GM cars from 1978 to 1985 suffered major problems. Class action lawsuits and efforts from the Federal Trade Commission resulted in buybacks of the cars from GM. Chrysler also suffered damage to its reputation when its compact cars, the Plymouth Volaré and Dodge Aspen, were developed quickly and suffered from massive recalls and poor quality.
American Auto Industry Executives went to Congress and demanded that import quotas be implemented to reduce the Japanese Auto Imports. All to get the American Auto Industry breathing room to get back on its feet. If not implemented the American Auto Industry was done for forever. The Japanese Auto Industry entered into the "Voluntary Restraint Agreement" for Japanese imports. What this did was to give Japanese Auto Industry the means to drive up the prices for their cars, while that actual costs to produce the cars were unchanged. This meant the higher prices they were setting due to lower supply was pure profit. The Japanese Auto Industry had the greatest gift any corporation could ask for, the ability to set the unchallenged profit from each item produced. They double the price and increase their profit not by 10% or 20% but
5 to 10 times their normal profit margins.
In 1981, Japanese automakers entered into a so-called "Voluntary restraint agreement" limiting the number of autos that they could import to the U.S. to 1.68 million per year.[20] One side effect of this quota was that the Japanese car companies began developing luxury cars that had higher profit margins, such as Toyota's Lexus, Honda's Acura,and Nissan Motor Company's Infiniti divisions. Another consequence was that the Japanese car makers began opening auto production plants in the U.S., with the three largest Japanese auto manufacturers all opening production facilities by 1985. These facilities were opened primarily in the southern U.S., in states that were not union friendly. Although the U.A.W. made substantial union -organizing efforts at these plants, they remained non-union.
So did the American Auto Industry do? Did they go after the possible price difference between American cars and Japanese cars so they could regain their market share or to compete against the Japanese Auto Industry? Nope the American Auto executives did not want to compete the for American car buyers no they decided to to push their car prices higher to match the Japanese Auto prices.
So the American Auto Industry that could not compete with the Japanese Auto Industry at the lower prices now was offering the American auto buyer the same piece of fail at double or triple the price.
The unions did not drive the price of cars out reach of most Americans it was the American Auto Industry executives and their greed to get short term profits at the expense of the Americans. Look at the SUV craze in the 1990s, the American Auto Industry were happy with it because they were making a reported (by them) $20,000 to $26,000 profit on each SUV or truck made.
Making a profit of $20,000 or more on each SUV or truck and the Unions are at fault for the failure of the American Auto Industry! WoW!
The GOP is at fault for the total destruction of the middle class and push meme against unions when they are the greedy fools screwing the Americans.