The United Auto Workers has gone on strike against General Motors. Once upon a time, within my living memory, this would have been — was — front-page national news. When the UAW went on strike against General Motors in 1946 and 1970, GM was the nation’s largest employer and the UAW one of its largest labor unions. Some 343,000 UAW members went on strike in 1970, 22,000 of them in Canada, and the strike lasted 67 days. This was during what turned out to be the last months of a recession.

In contrast, just 46,000 UAW members went out on strike this week. The work stoppage at GM has had an impact on suppliers and factory communities, but it’s orders of magnitude less on the national economy than during the strike 49 years ago.