[djmcmath]

The problem with the auto workers is two-fold:
1 - They have what they believe is a skill -- be it installing a door panel or supervising a robot that welds in a floor pan, or whatever. But there's really no skill involved there that couldn't be taught to the average monkey in an afternoon. The "skill" is completely useless, in terms of leveraging into anything else. There's no reason to go to Detroit to track down out-of-work assembly line workers, because the world at large has a glut of people who have the basic skills necessary to do that kind of work.

2 - They believe that they are entitled to $30/hr for their "skill." They are absolutely retrainable -- the world needs landscapers, ditch-diggers, and janitors. But these are people who have been born into a world where unskilled uneducated labor gets nigh on 6 figures and a full benefits package.

So if GM "goes under," per se, they'd restructure to create an organization that would support the necessary bits -- building transmissions, doing design work, whatever portions of the business that can remain viable in The Real World. Who knows -- they might even still build cars, just not on the scale that they do now. Everyone else would be faced with the reality that they need to find another job or starve to death. Or, in the United Socialists of America, get used to living on welfare.

Dan