UAW To Fight Salary Concessions Tied to Bailout

Who saw this coming? Now that Bush has forked over $17 billion to GM and Chrysler, the UAW says it is going to fight against giving up any salary concessions and will just renegotiate the terms of the bailout:

In agreeing to provide federal assistance to General Motors and Chrysler, the White House demanded the firms cut worker compensation to the levels paid at the U.S. divisions of Toyota, Nissan and Honda. But Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, said earlier this week that he would seek to remove the wage-reduction provision of the loan, calling it “an undue tax on the workers” who have already made “major” sacrifices for the benefit of the auto industry.

What were they? Show me the “major” sacrifices. Did you close down the jobs bank? Nope, you suspended it. What were the sacrifices? You refused to concede, resulting in the bailout to die in the Senate, then turned around and blamed the Republicans.

The bailout changes nothing and solved nothing. Because of people like Ron Gettlefinger, we will be hearing from the Big Three again, and not because they wanted to repay those loans early.