I am definitely pro unions however, unions can do as much hurt to a company as they can do good for the workers they were built to protect. I am one of those that believe that the UAW asked too much of there companies for what they were bringing to the table. On the other hand the bad management that clearly exists there accepted the terms so they're just as much to blame.
While our industry is not doing too well right now I think it's safe to say that the auto industry is doing much worse. If you look at the 2 unions UAW workers while they might make less then pilots are probably on a whole receiving better retirement and health care than ALPA members for a far less "skilled" (as a whole) field of work than we are. The concessions they have made have been far less than those made in our industry and while the auto industry is crumbling around them they still don't want to budge.
I think that ALPA and UAW are on 2 different ends of the specturm for showing what unions can do to an industry. While I sometimes want to see our union do more for us I would rather be an ALPA member right now than a UAW(and my card says "status: furloughed").
In the end I don't think that anythings going to happen to organized labor just because of what's going on in the auto industy. So I'm not going to listen to panic enducers on CNN and FOX but I also think that the UAW might want to pull there heads out of their A$$'$