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Notes -
I have a little bit of insight from my experience with a few UAW members and the industry.
EV manufacturing requires high-tech equipment: clean rooms to build the batteries, state-of-the-art HVAC filters to remove metal dust, toxic gasses.
Not only are the production workers not qualified for the production work, but union workers are not qualified to maintain the factory itself either.
Companies use that as an excuse to bring in outside contractors to replace them.
The big problem is the demographic. I don't know exactly the history, but there was a hiring freeze in the last part of the 20th century, so the demographic structure of the union members is lopsided, with a lot more retired union members than actually working ones.
When times are bad, the retired members have all the time in the world to attend day-time union meetings to steer the union's direction toward protecting their retirement benefits. Wages and other workers' benefits get the short end of the stick.
I think being a union worker in the auto industry is still preferable to not being in a union, but it's not easy to get in.
Regarding the corruption, at some point it was possible for a company manager to join the union on their last day / week before company retirement, go work on the line for a day with the guys that were your subordinates until then, and then get full union retirement benefits on top of the company pension.
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