Posted on 11/06/2008 6:33:07 PM PST by Fred
DETROIT, Nov 6 (Reuters) - United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger on Thursday urged the U.S. government to provide another $25 billion in loans to struggling U.S. automakers so that they can meet their health care obligations to over 780,000 retirees and their dependents.
"The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve can help immediately by taking steps to provide liquidity to auto manufacturers so they can get through the difficulties caused by an across-the-board decline in auto sales," Gettelfinger said in a statement released by the union.
Gettelfinger joined the chief executives of General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Chrysler LLC in meetings on Thursday afternoon in Washington with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to plead the case for urgent aid to the embattled auto industry.
Gettelfinger called those meetings "constructive." He said the UAW looked forward to meeting with President-elect Barack Obama "in the near future" to discuss the same issues. (Reporting by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
It’s going to be a tough winter for lots of businesses.
As long as the UAW is in charge I won’t spend any more money supporting these thugs. I own 2 Jeeps.
Pray for W, Saracuda and Our Troops
I heard 40,000 directly but it will affect the businesses that support the big three.
I am never buying Union made product and will w-mail every union and tell them so.
I wish I could recall the number of companies that are involved in the assembled parts for one car. It’s in the low thousands. The unassembled parts number is in the tens of thousands. It was really surprising to me.
After what has happened to the auto industry, the unions are hoping to destroy more of our economy by expanding under Obama.
I thought the money was to help them “Retool” to build hybrids, not to finance the consumption of retirees.
Hey, life sucks! My family has been hit hard by this economic downturn! My husband is an electrician...and there’s no work here. We have no health insurance and no retirement benefits. I’m sure we’ll bounce back in the future but for god sake don’t ask me to feel sorry enough for these yahoos to pay for things i, myself don’t have!
I used to live in MI. I don’t doubt it. The economic impact will be enormous—and not just MI.
If GM went bankrupt, they might try to invalidate their suffocating Union contracts. Of course, the UAW would immediately go on strike and kill the host for good.
Unfortunately, a lot of “patriotic” Americans (even here on FR) find glee in the plight of the automakers. Its really a very sad situation. Once that industry is gone, its never coming back (along with a huge part of America’s industrial base).
I’m confident the auto makers have enough assets to pay the health benefits if they have to. The might have to cut back on some jobs to do it. The money is to protect those union jobs, and we’ll probably never see a penny of it back.
The unions should pay for the bailout. These commies spent over 400 million dollars to get Obozo elected and all the lying thieving DIMS. So this DIM majority congress is bought and paid for by the unions.
the big three need to go find their own funding it cannot be from the federal gov’t, they are using their own credit lines at this time TOO FRIGGIN BAD!!! I have to use my own credit line too, suck it up. They need to make it happen on their own, one of these useless banks that were bailout should be lending to them, but they won’t because it would be a bad business move. DUHHH. So the sucker middle class gets stuck with the bill.
I for one and my corporation will not buy another Union made vehicle. They can starve to death for fall I care. Unions supported Obama and Obama can buy their cars.
And having a blue state go belly up is bad how?
The time for playing nice in the hopes that the Blues will become Reds is past. It’s time for smashmouth scorched-earth politics.
The Blues need to learn that elections have consequences as well - and if one of them is “Vote Dem and watch your jobs evaporate,” so be it. Maybe next time they’ll ignore their union bosses and vote Republican or Conservative.
Also, most of America’s industrial base would NOT be lost if GM and Ford folded. It already moved South. Or do you think that all the Texas companies supplying Toyota’s San Antonio plant are a mirage?
Toyota, Nissan, etc will fill the vacuum, if their is a buyer they will build the cars and without unions.
The unions are merely a tool of the DIMS anymore.
It is like death and taxes, you can not avoid the inevitable the big three are heading for history.
Where were all these bailouts and protections when my software engineering job was being outsourced to the tune of at least 65,000 H1Bs a year (and still coming)???? Did I go begging for help and whining for protections, no I sucked it up, stayed competitive and have been preparing myself for the nightmare we now face of NATIONALIZATION AND SOCIALISM.
Do not take this personally, but we cannot stop these things, God has a plan, he wants us to pay close attention while he takes care of all the greedy ones. Just try and get out of the way while He does his thing.
I can imagine them having to restructure and probably downsize considerably, but I don't see them just going away.
This is going to put a serious dent in UAW's membership roles and dues money, but we'll just have to explain to them that not everyone can afford a new car, and until they can it wouldn't be fair for someone else to have one, so there's no point in making them.
Fixed it!
780,000!!!!! Dont'cha just love it. Their obligations are now supposed to be our obligations.
Along with our 401ks, that is next, how else will they pay for it.
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