The bailout has it backward for auto workers [View All]

[Radical Activist]

Who is the bailout supposed to help? We keep hearing about American workers and economic collapse from lost jobs. Then why are we getting a bailout that screws auto workers?

Why is the UAW expected to make concessions to the company as a precondition for the bailout? If the Big 3 want federal dollars then they should be forced to pay MORE to laid off workers, more health benefits, and more for retirees. That's what will help the American worker and put more money into the economy.

Giving billions to the auto industry so they can fuck over their workforce is ass backwards.



http://www.freep.com/article/20081208/BUSINESS01/81208057/1002/BUSINESS

UAW leadership voted:

• To allow all three Detroit automakers to postpone their contributions to the retiree health-care trust — known as a VEBA, or voluntary employee beneficiary association — until 2012. The contributions were originally due in 2010.

• To eliminate the program known as the jobs bank and “negotiate a new provision to protect workers that other wise would have been placed in the jobs bank program.” In the jobs bank, UAW workers are paid nearly full wages after they are laid off or their jobs are eliminated. While some people in the jobs bank do other work for the company or volunteer in the community during the work day, the program is controversial because some laid-off employees are paid not to work.

The UAW first announced last Wednesday that it would suspend the jobs bank and allow the delay of VEBA payments to help the automakers.