AP reports May 10th:

"For General Motors Corp., the task at hand is so difficult that experts say a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is all but inevitable."

We wrote on this blog March 21st:

They will probably do what they did at Delphi, the auto parts supplier that was spun off from GM in 1999; they'll declare bankruptcy as they have also done to public sector workers like in Vallejo California.

The advantage here is that they will simply negate any contractual agreements, enforce conditions on workers through the courts (a little economic terrorism will be applied to discourage resistance) and there will be not even the pretense of negotiation like there is now. I say pretense because it's not really a negotiation as far as the workers are concerned. Union officials, who are ideologically in league with the employers are meeting with them not to defend workers and our jobs and benefits but to dismantle them in order to protect bosses profits. Any differences that arise are over how best to accomplish this and, for UAW officials, how they can still retain their jobs which are quite well paid with good benefits as well as some sort of stature in the eyes of the employers and the Democratic Party.