Unions and Jobs: The U.S. Auto Industry -- Comment/Reply

In a recent article, Reynolds (1986) attacks the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the US automobile industries, concluding that: 1. the General Motors (GM) Saturn plant will destroy more jobs than it creates, 2. the UAW has stuck to its outmoded ideology, "the enemy is the company," 3. the government was wrong to give Chrysler Corp. federal "charity," and 4. the UAW is the major obstacle to creating jobs in the auto industry. These conclusions are unsubstantiated, as is shown by an examination of the evidence behind them. Furthermore, the issues raised by Reynolds are more complex than suggested by his treatment. In reply, Reynolds contends that his article was not an attack on the UAW or on GM, but rather a plain vanilla application of supply-and-demand analysis to the auto industry and the Saturn agreement.