When the Automaker Unions talk the automakers must listen, but what happens when demands are just too far past the reality of the market place? What happens when labor negotiation talks break down and there is just no possible way the company can continue to pay those wages or the ever-increasing healthcare insurance? And what about those under funded pensions? None of these problems are going to go away and the largest of the US Automakers know that the road ahead is no runway in the coming years.

Indeed there might be light at the end of the tunnel but certainly not in selling gas guzzling SUVs when oil prices are at $70.00 per barrel and gasoline prices are around four dollars a gallon. Hybrid cars are probably the answer but with all the re-tooling there will be little if any profit in selling them if US Automakers are competing with the Japanese for price. And let's face it the Japanese are ahead of the US Automakers in getting these units to market and although the have waiting lists the US Automakers have

not started selling their units yet.

Have many of the manufacturing unions with their demands for healthcare benefits, higher pay and other demands priced themselves and their labor out of the market. That is to say out of the realm of reality in the market place? If the company cannot make a profit with the labors demands, then the company has three choices; go robotic, out source to other regions of the world or stop production entirely. Consider all this in 2006.

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