The national strike — GM's first since 1970 — comes nine days after the last labor contract expired. After weeks of late-night, closed-door bargaining talks that appeared to be making progress, the negotiations began to unravel as they crawled into last weekend.

Union local leaders say talks broke down over economic issues like pay, pension payouts, job security guarantees and cost-of-living adjustments. The union wanted a trust fund, called a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) with at least 70 percent. Most analysts assume the two sides would end up in the middle at 65 percent, which forces GM to raise $35 billion for the trust. Sources say the two sides came to a general agreement on the parameters of the fund.

Says a Detroit Free Press op-ed:

For the first time in 31 years, the UAW called a national strike Monday, unable to settle a new contract with General Motors Corp. The UAW has 73,000 members working at 82 GM facilities across the country, and the longer they stay out, the further the ripples will spread, to suppliers, retailers and businesses that count UAW members among their customers.

For GM, reports The New York Times, "its unyielding stance reflects its decision to accept the short-term pain of a strike at 80 facilities in 30 states to achieve its goals: a lower cost structure and more flexible work force to better compete against surging Japanese automakers like Toyota and Honda."

When yesterday's deadline passed, 73,000 UAW workers walked off the job nationwide, marking the first national strike against one of Detroit's automakers 30+ years.

"Fifty years ago, a union strike against General Motors would have been a national crisis," says Jerry Flint at Forbes. "Thirty years ago, it would have been troublesome. Even 15 years ago, there were a quarter-million hourly workers at GM."

Times have changed, though. Today the company employs less than a third that number. UAW membership, meanwhile, has fallen from 1.5 million less than 30 years ago to about 576,000 today. And this strike will hurt organizing efforts at the foreign-owned auto plants in Southern states.

**UPDATE (9/26): GM reached what Bloomberg News calls an "historic" contract agreement with the UAW, ending the two-day strike and taking $50 billion of future health-care obligations off GM's books.

Follow-up to: Auto-Union Talks Labor On