Volvo Cars was sold to Ford in 1999 when Volvo AB decided to focus on commercial vehicles, there's no financial trouble except the one that Ford went through during the 2008 crisis...
> When the global economic crisis of 2008 threatened the US automakers, Swedish authorities became concerned about the fate of Volvo, should Ford file for bankruptcy. These concerns mounted after repeated mass-layoffs at Volvo. In December 2008, Ford announced that it was considering selling Volvo Cars. Initially, a sale price of US$6 billion was reported.
Your conjecture has no basis in reality, it was not due to unions creating higher costs, it was the mess the USA created for the world in 2008 that prompted the sale of Volvo from Ford to Geely.
