My take on this may be surprising. The strike is good news. It means the union has decided to accept the massive concessions it must make to keep GM viable.
The key is contained in the quote below from the article cited above.
"'David Healy, analyst with Burnham Securities, said he believes GM could take a strike of up to a month without a significant problem.
"It's sort of an odd thing, the first thing that happens with an automaker in case of a strike is their cash increases, as their payroll stops, and they still keep collecting cash for the cars that have been shipped," said Healy.
He believes the two sides are close enough that the strike will be a short one.
"Days, not weeks or months, that would be my guess," he said.'''
As we can see, the union, about to make unprecedented concessions, has decided that they must demonstrate a display of strength and/or recklessness to placate their members before collapsing in the negotiations.In addition, they need to bring GM reasonably close to devastating losses to give time for the reality of the situation to percolate through the reptile brands of union members and bubble up into their cerebral cortexes. In other words, union members need to be able to demonstrate anger and rage for awhile so they can feel a little better and also, having gotten these emotions out of their system, so they can think about what it really means---to both union members and retirees---if they destroy GM. Not that they lack that capability.
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addendum posted the same day. The reason you can tell this is pure bluff instead of a serious confrontation is the timing. The strike was called almost immediately after the strike deadline with practically no extensions.
If the strike had occurred after a lengthy post-extension negotiation, it would be much more dangerous. At this point, the anger and frustration of the Union members would be built up to a much higher level, taking much longer to discharge.
In addition, membership would have gotten the idea that the prospects of a good agreement were almost hopeless anyway due to long, dragged out negotiations. So they would've been much more willing to push things to the limit.
As it is, union members (or the intelligent ones, at least) realize that the negotiations have not been going on for very long time. There is therefore an element of eagerness to get back to the negotiations and end the strike. In this situation, having a strike reduces the momentum of the union membership rather than increasing it.
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