Newly-minted president Bob King is trying to revive an ailing United Auto Workers union by vowing anew to organize Toyota's U.S. factories, a campaign that has as much chance of success as King being invited to perform card tricks at Toyota's next board of directors meeting.

King, one of the best thinkers to lead the UAW, surely realizes that Toyota's U.S. workers, having watched the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler on top of wage concessions at UAW plants, have scant reason to welcome the union. The UAW since the 1980s has failed to elicit the interest of Toyota workers, who now have benefitted because their employer avoided layoffs as the U.S. automotive downturn slowed and idled plants.