Aside from what Mick said & I agree with him. There are other reasons for the decline in the big 3 American. They don't build their vehicles as safe as they could be. Far more foreign designed/manufactured vehicles are built with a closer eye towards safety & fuel consumption. The plants of the big 3 & other American manufactured vehicles are out dated in comparison with other countries, espically 3rd world countires that have just entered the market. Their plants are designed with the lastest in high tech advancements & it would be tough for the American plants to have to rebuild every 3-5 years to keep up every time a new foreign plant gets built with all the new advances that keep making those already in production obsolete & the bastards already knew this, ever since they subsidized Chrysler (remember the song: "I'm Changing My Namme To Chrysler"). This has been an ongoing problem & it keeps getting swept under the rug. When there's no real money for R&D, which gets gobled up at the top, & all the tax attraction for putting R&D money went out the window you can go & thank big government for that one.

(from an above post)

"The hourly wage of the average UAW auto worker is $25 per hour, or over $50,000 per year, and if you include the value of benefits, increases to $65 per hour or more than $130,000."

$25 p/hr isn't unreasonable but when you say including bennies up to $65 p/hr & you say that, that's the union fault. Wrong. Did you include what of that amount is for Fed & state & local taxes if there are any, unemployment ins. health & welfare, worker's comp, SS, any types of plans inluding retirement & etc. medical & etc. that's not just union, most of that's required of any BIG manufacture. It's not required of over seas manufacturers though & that's not a fault of the union either.
If you don't think that the Detroit Dunces & the Oil Opecs & their pals in politcial policy play making aren't playing ball with each other you aren't watching the game. This country could've produced safer vehicles that consumed less fuel ages ago. They could've gone
with researching & developing hybird yrs back had they wanted to look at & consider the future instead of their pockets & government could of made it more attractive for them to do that & at the same time made it more attractive to the consumer too. As for the $10 p/hr worker affording a new car they (the worker) have been priced out of other markets too. Again, not the fault of the unions. Face it, it's Big Business & Big Government that are at fault here, stop putting the blame where these 2 are telling you where to put the blame.

Barry