Autoblog has run the numbers on a potential UAW strike of the Big Three domestic automakers. The blog points out:
While the automakers can ill-afford a strike, $1 billion only amounts to about $5,500 per person with 180,000 active UAW members, and workers probably want paychecks to stop even less than the automakers. We don’t know how these negotiations will all pan out, but if the domestics can’t close the $30/hr labor cost gap with their Japanese competition, there’s a chance none of the active or retired UAW workers will have a retirement to look forward to.