The last time the United Auto Workers went on strike nationally against GM, back in 1970, most Americans alive today had not been born. And that’s not all that’s changed.

The UAW had 400,000 members on strike then. Yesterday, it was a shadow of that — 73,000 — who walked off the job. In 1970, GM was king of auto-making. Now, it’s lost the throne to Toyota and is struggling.

This time, all the marbles are on the table — whether GM pulls the rest of its manufacturing out of the U.S., whether U.S. manufacturing workers can make a decent wage, by their fathers’ standards.

This hour, On Point: a strike lights up a tough world.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joe White, Detroit Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal.

Kate Bronfenbrenner, labor economist and director of labor education research at Cornell University.

Matthew Slaughter, professor of international relations at the Tuck School of Management at Dartmouth and former member of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors.

Dolores Sox, striking United Auto Worker in Michigan.