Second, it also allows the union to inflict the most damage for the least cost by taking advantage of supply chain vulnerabilities, as when a key parts supplier or a plant producing popular cars in short supply is shut down. Already, the shutdown of facilities that supply other facilities has led GM and Ford to temporarily shut down two assembly lines.

A business must choose whether to keep more parts on hand, or to be more dependent on the ability of their suppliers to keep the supply chain moving.

By keeping fewer parts on hand, they choose to be more tightly dependent on suppliers’ consistent production. They take the risk of a supply chain problem, in exchange for the efficiency of not having to keep warehouses full of parts all the time.

That’s a strategic tradeoff of risk vs. efficiency.

In business, risks do not always pay off. Managing risk is much of the job of “business management”.

The suppliers’ ability to keep making parts, in turn, depends on the active, ongoing, participation of workers. Workers are in fact not enslaved; they can quit, go on strike, or just plain get sick with COVID.

Again, businesses choose to take the gamble of increasingly tight dependency on suppliers. That was not a forced move. Again, it was a tradeoff of risk vs. efficiency.

Smart business managers could have noticed that they were more dependent on the ongoing consent of workers, and mitigate their exposure to this risk by making sure that working conditions were such that workers would not go out on strike.

They … apparently didn’t do that?

Oops?