I despise the union presumption of entitlement. It irks me when a union has to be consulted before an automaker decides whether to build a new plant or consider a merger, as if the union runs the company. And I particularly disliked the “our grandparents fought and died for our benefits: we’ll never give them up!” malarky they have been spouting in recent months.

Autoworkers and their union are one and the same thing: they can not be excised from each other. It is impossible to work in the American auto industry without being a member of CAW or UAW. Truly, though, it is the union I find worthy of my contempt. Decades ago the unions served a purpose, but now they are like a bloated lamprey hanging obscenely from the near-dead body of the industry.

Do I think the unions are the only cause of the impending failure of the U.S. auto manufacturing industry? No, of course not. The customers who convinced themselves they desperately needed a rolling eight person living room instead of a vehicle and the marketing/design/management that kept the development of the American car 20 years behind the rest of the world were a big part of it. But the unions definitely played a part as well: blocking automation, interfering with the shut down of big truck lines, obstructing quality initiatives, and impeding the timely demise of redundant brands all had their impact.

Am I being unfair? No more so than the people who claim that the only ones at fault in the death of the American car are the “fat cat” executives. I think the unions deserve as much if not more blame than the management for the current situation. The one possible good that might come out of the collapse of GM and Chrysler might be the disruption of the unions: but something tells me they’ll figure out some way to screw that up too.