The union wages issue is one part of a bigger problem, the failure to successfully balance short term return vs. strategy for long term viability. For publicly-held companies, there is a legal and structural bias toward the annual bottom line at the expense of things necessary to make the company work beyond a five-year horizon. Agreeing to the UAW's insanely-expensive pension plan when a company could afford it 'for awhile' is a classic example, but there are plenty that involve capital investment and strategic vision issues rather than simple labor overhead.