This year, it was supposed to have been different. Ford Motor Co. was struck in 1967, General Motors in 1970 and Chrysler in 1973, but this time everyone in a position to prophesy had said that the triennial contract talks between the United Auto Workers and the automobile manufacturers would surely end amicably. It was not to be. Last week 170,000 Ford employees in 22 states put down their tools and walked off the lines.
Historically, the U.A.W. has declined to call industry-wide strikes, preferring instead to zero in on a so-called target companythis year, Ford. The union's logic: the...