The union workers who have shut down General Motors say they can out last the company. I can go as long as it takes, as long as it takes. It is also the option to permanently close plants, eliminating thousands of jobs. And in the short run, leverage is cutting strikers' health benefits and trying to block unemployment compensation for laid off workers. It's threatening GM's future share of the car market, the company's very life blood.
Leverage is also a matter of timing.
Labor expert Greg Tarpinian points out that we are now in the peak of the business cycle and in model change over time. This strike drags on for General Motors will be - will hurt its competitive position way in excess of what it could possibly gain out of this strike. But auto industry securities analyst John Casesa says the union too is playing a risky game. Even though it can shut GM down by just striking at a plant or two, the longer the strike goes, the higher the probability that tens of thousands of UAW jobs will be eliminated. Those job losses would come at a time of desperate efforts to revitalize the union movement at its weakest in decades.