Chrysler Shutdown Shows Need for Immediate Help for Automakers
After Chrysler announced it is shutting down all of its North American plants starting tomorrow, elected officials, union leaders and other industry supporters urged the Bush administration to immediately provide assistance to the auto industry or risk an economic tsunami in the nation’s manufacturing sector.
Citing a 47 percent drop in sales last month, Chrysler said late yesterday it will shut down all 30 of its North American plants at least until Jan. 19, putting 46,000 employees out of work. The plants are typically shut down from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day. The workers will receive holiday pay from Dec. 22 through Jan. 2. After that, the workers will be considered laid off for the additional weeks their plants are shuttered. Some of the plants could be shut down into February, according to published reports.
Anti-Worker Republicans Pressure White House for Deep Pay Cuts in Automaker Loan
After a small group of Republican senators put the economy in jeopardy by blocking an emergency bridge loan for the nation’s Big Three automakers, the same minority is pressuring the White House to demand some significant pay cuts from the UAW as a condition of any short-term financial assistance.
Bryce Hoffman writes in yesterday’s Detroit News that the White House may press union workers to accept the terms of a pay-cut amendment introduced by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), which would have required the UAW to accept deep concessions that would have effectively neutered the union.
Double Standard: Critics of Big Three Loan Subsidize Foreign Competitors
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When Senate Republicans blocked the $14 billion emergency bridge loan needed to keep the nation’s auto industry operating, they knew it could cost between 3 million and 5 million jobs. But some of the most vociferous critics of the auto industry and the UAW reside in states that have given huge no-strings-attached subsidies to foreign auto plants. Some of those states even owe their very survival in part to the Big Three auto companies.
Good Jobs First reports that foreign-owned auto companies operating in the United States have received $3.6 billion in subsidies, mostly from southern “right to work” for less states. That amount doesn’t even count joint ventures with U.S. companies or include inflation, which would make the figures even higher in today’s dollars.
