Farewell to GM, from a factory rat’s disloyal daughter

[Spike89]

36. American and union aren't interchangable

Seriously, the concept of "American" and foreign gets more confusing all the time. Multinational companies like GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota, etc. are, well, multinational. A GM car built in Canada using parts sourced from all over the world is totally apple pie in what way? How do you classify Chrysler cars from the period when they were owned by Mercedes? Hmm, where does Mazda fit in? They were basically owned by Ford, then a partner, now it seems Ford owns a small share. I drive a Mazda pickup, but it was assembled in the US on the Ford Ranger line (it is identical to the Ranger).
The real issue would seem to be the US autoworkers unions and how they got busted. A big part of it in mind goes back to the culture wars of the 60s. Blue collar workers were strongly progressive economically, but on many social issues, the rank and file were portrayed in the media (and maybe really were) considerably less liberal. The key issues of the 60s protest and counter culture movements were social, not truly economic. The republicans were never friends of the unions, but young democrats were not comfortable with Unions that seemed to support the war, weren't seen as agressively pushing civil rights issues, and quite frankly weren't seen as cool.
It isn't Honda, Toyota, or Volkswagen's fault we stopped supporting unions in this country. GM, Ford, Chrysler managements would all love to break their unions. It is the workers that need to keep unions strong and the workers need to organize in the US-based "foreign" car plants.