They put all of their eggs in one basket with SUVs.
They did piss poor market research.
They made shit cars.
They were up to their ears in debt before people stopped buying their shit SUVs.
If it were all the UAW then Ford wouldn't be doing so well.
I work for Ford. I've worked as both a blue collar worker, and a white collar worker, as well as being in management. So I have a rather unique insight into the issues the big 3 have faced.
In addition, my father was white collar (30 years Ford), my mother blue collar - 30 years as a UAW head for a teachers union at a university, and so on.
All the things you have said are fairly true. The big 3 ignored quality. They ignored design. They went after the 'big money' in SUV's and ignored smalled cars.
They were also essentially forced to pay well beyond what they could afford for the Unions.
Let's be clear here. This wasn't one company caught with their pants down. This was the entire US auto industry coming damn close to going bankrupt all at the same time.
A lot of that had to do with the fact that talent moves between the big three interchangeably. You routinely see high-end management shuttling sideways between the companies, and all three adopted the same short-sighted profit-seeking.
However, as the pendulum swings, it also swung with unions, and it swung way too far. Unskilled union members were hiring in at a wage comparable to someone who had spent $50k or more getting a professional degree. That cannot be sustained, nor rationalized. Indeed, in many cases the rank and file union make more than management - that is still the case of non-leadership-level salaried workers. Those salaried workers do not get overtime, where the unionites get 1.5x pay for overtime, 2x for sunday and 3x for holiday.
Those wages being paid to the union workers are WELL beyond what a family needs for subsistence. That is why the Unions came to be. They created the middle class - but a middle class does not require 60 inch plasmas, travel trailers, campers, and super-duty pickups.
People in the United States have absolutely no idea what it means to be poor. Even a minimum wage McDonald's job will provide a level of living that many in other countries can only dream of.
The pendulum has begun to swing again. A backlash against Unions has begun, precisely because they have grown beyond ensuring employees aren't exploited and have moved toward maximizing an employee's pay regardless of proficiency or skill set.
They are corrupt in many ways, and the concessions companies make for them are incredible - allowing them to be paid while campaigning for their positions in the union. Allowing comittee-man level members to be paid while not actually performing a job for the company.
The simple truth is, Unions are needed. The other simple truth is, they've expanded far beyond simply protecting workers rights and have abused the power they once obtained through blood sweat and tears of their constituents.
I hope the pendulum stops swinging somewhere in the middle. The folks arguing in this thread about it who can't see the middle ground - well, in the end they'll hurt themselves more than help their cause.