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| Whose ‘Legacy’ Are These Auto Industry Costs? |
| Published: April 5, 2002 |
It is a frightening prospect and one that surely makes business and legislative leaders sweat. Domestic automakers, all headquartered in Michigan, are facing the continued march of older workers into retirement. Demographers have been warning of this transition for decades, one common to every type of business and one likely to impact the number of new business starts as well. Autoworkers, however, have enjoyed the benefits fought for by unions, and have every expectation that those benefits — especially health care — will continue through their golden years. This gargantuan shadow is cast across balance sheets of declining sales and profits for U.S. automakers as they continue the decades-long fight against rising import sales, even as the foreign manufacturers continue to build huge new factories in the sunbelt states — without union labor and its spike on costs. |
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