All this mess is very confusing to me because of the different standards
applied, depending on what your opinion is.

All I know is if I owned a company, and, the product was rapidly losing
sales; it would be imperative to reduce labor that produces that product in
some fashion or another.

Health care benefits and retirement packages were agreed as a stipulation of
employing said union worker.  This baggage grows as time goes forward.  If
the employer fails to anticipate worst case scenarios in the business of
making cars when making that agreement, then its doomed to fail.   That's
true in any business model.

Reducing one's hours on a voluntary basis is the beginning of reducing
labor.  Usually escalating to mandatory reduction of hours.  Followed by
layoffs.  This is typical, nothing unusual.

Relatively speaking of wages related to their corresponding local economies,
I believe the Smyrna Nissan workers actually have more buying power.  The
primary difference being is the baggage that UAW carries for retired workers
and health care.  How big is this baggage is not really addressed by the
article.

Typically, southerners are more likely to have to work with less pay, even
in relation to their local economy.  As a result, they've acclimatized to
that.  They are less likely to bite the hand that's feeding them.  Further,
so-called thrift tips I've seen lately on national and local news are
already utitlized by such peoples.  Some even consider such tips as insults
to their intelligence and survival techniques.