GM cutbacks portend tougher road ahead - another victim of unreasonable promises

GM cutbacks portend tougher road ahead - Yahoo! News: "By announcing plans to cut 30,000 workers and close multiple US factories, General Motors Monday sent a warning that ripples beyond the automotive industry: Working-class jobs with generous benefits are slipping away.

In many ways, the current woes of GM and other automakers merely follow a pattern long visible in other old-line industries, from steel to airlines. When overseas or nonunion competition rises, the result is cutbacks in jobs, pay, and benefits.
But this time, the company at issue is General Motors, which for much of the past century epitomized the ability of US industrial prowess to lift assembly workers into middle-class lifestyles. And this time, the larger-than-expected job cuts come even as the larger threat of possible bankruptcy lingers in the background.

The challenge facing GM is competition from Asian carmakers with lower manufacturing costs plus the burden of past promises to fund pensions and healthcare to legions of now-retired workers."