I've talked to a guy who retired out of GM a couple years back. It seems the Auto companies did the same as our federal governments. They offered pension plans without backing them with capital. In any contract negotiation you have trade offs. You might trade a bigger raise for a floating Stat or get an extra sick day for less guaranteed hours of work. GM and the other two gain concessions in other areas by offering a very lucrative pension plan to their employees. Now they are having to pay out and more retire every year. The foreign competition doesn't have this huge drag. I don't know how they could fix the situation.
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