No, the issue is that GM did share buybacks and is now low on cash. It's entirely the fault of the executives.

The film, which is full of people who actually were involved in the bailout, paints a different picture. The unions were at least half the problem. The other half is that GM keeps making sub-optimal cars. Neither problem was fixed by the bailout.

No, the issue are the unions.

No, GM did $10 billion of buybacks this year and now needs to "save" $6billion by firing workers.

The cost of firing those workers? They've permanently lost those workers, their families, and their friends as customers. Forever. So that some fat #$@#$ shareholders can have a few more bucks in their bank accounts.

The unions are the only thing protecting those workers and the thousands of jobs in the American supply chain that the executives are doing their best to destroy.

10 billion / 4250= 2.3 million

From Motley Fool:

GM targets a cash reserve of $18 billion, and returns any free cash above that number to shareholders via dividends and an ongoing stock-repurchase program. Since 2012, it has returned about $25 billion.

Why you wouldn't take that 25 billion and invest it in AI and electric cars is baffling to me.

When a small startup fails, it's often the fault of the team.

When a large organization fails, it's almost always the fault of the leadership.

It strikes me as a real chickensh*t move how our captains of industry rush to claim credit and bonuses when things go right, but blame the workers when the executives can't live up to the guidance they gave to Wall Street.

The documentary shows that one of GM's main problems is that they are buried in sunk pension costs. They spend more on people who no longer work there than people who do.

Toyota isn't unionized, doesn't have any trouble attracting workers, and has a great reputation for quality. There was a time when unions were needed to improve working conditions, but that time has passed.

IMHO, it was a mistake to bail them out. I see why we did it, but it didn't fix the root problems.

Toyota is completely unionized. Toyota considers their workers to be one of the reasons for their quality.

More important, the executives knew about the pension liabilities when they accepted the job. It's been part of their planning and their guidance all along. Blaming the workers when those plans failed is cowardly.

Edit:

German automakers are also highly unionized. It doesn't seem to prevent them from making quality cars either. It really seems to me that executives blaming the workers is a US and UK thing. In many business cultures, it just makes the executive seem incompetent.

Toyota in the US is not unionized. Their one unionized factory in Fremont, CA closed several years ago and is now a Tesla plant.

Pension costs are not unknowable - that sounds like a failure to plan for future costs.

It wasn't a matter of not knowing them. They knew. They were negotiated by the unions. It was a matter of not having enough money to pay them. GM simply cannot sell cars at market prices and also pay all the pensions and higher wages that the union demands. It's not workable.

It could’ve funded the pension fund instead of performing share buybacks, no?

It can’t be said they didn’t have that $10 billion. They had it.