The trouble with too many people leaving will be an open invitation to quality disasters despite attempts to train new hires.These jobs are far more complex and vastly more difficult or loaded than they were 15 or 20 years ago.Foreign manufacturers have foreign government subsidized health care and the well documented foreign exchange manipulation trade policies toward free trade as they have for the past 35 years.There has been NO REAL WAGE INCREASES in hourly wages for at least the past 12 years.Wages and benefits have gone up due to COLA increases tied to the CPI and health insurance premium inflation thanks to the medical pharmaceutical and insurance industries.The 30 plus year old stereotype of the fat lazy overcompensated autoworker does not play anymore.White shirts should be grateful they have the benefits they get due in no small part to the unions.Washington insiders and free traders don't get it and won't get it until mass panic is placed upon them.

You people bashing the import brands which produce here need to update your facts. The Japanese and Germans pay wages that were comparable to those of the UAW (within $1-2 per hour) BEFORE the UAW agreed to the pay cuts. So they are now typically higher. Where they lack is in the retirement package, but since that has now been shifted to the UAW, there is littel difference. Most just offer a 401k, as do most American corps.
As for the old "profits go overseas" argument, you need to look at just how much that profit is. It is far less than the costs of material, labor and overhead that gets spent right here.
BTW, Detroit build a great deal of its product in Canada, which also has socialized medicine. Why do we not hear you screaming about that unfair advantage?

I work for Gm for 23 years now. the workers do a great job it is the higher up people that really screw things up. they have no clue how things are run. what they say goes whether it is right or wrong. what i can't understand is how could they lose thirty some billion dollars whoever wrote that article is wrong gm had record sales north american operations showed a profit of 23 million. first time ever around the wourld they had record profits

Please listen clearly; In Japan and Korea there auto workers belong to strong and vibrant unions. In these countries they have national heathcare. They would never allow our domestics manufactures into there countries because they have more self respect then that. They would also never allow these auto's through there ports. They own 52% of our market now and it will grow larger. All of there plants here are non union in right to work states were unions are not welcome. They are given tax breaks to build there plants here. It cost them less to bring there vehicals to market because they have not been here 100 years and do not carry the same legacy cost as our domestic's. What we are seeing today has been in the works for the last 20 years. Our goverment is using this to destroy the unions in our country and therefore enlarge the corporate profits. The big gun our country uses to destroy the unions are "HEALTH CARE GREED" It is going to be very very bleak what our futures will be like. Now go continue to by you asian auto's.