Labour USA: Autos: Workers reps make concessions in deal with Chrysler-Fiat, bankruptcy deadline is Wed Ap29,2k9

Tom Krisher reports for Associated Press, "UAW [United Auto Workers labour union], Chrysler, and Fiat reach concession deal" (Ap26,2k9).

Chrysler has been living on $4 billion in U.S. government loans and is expected to get another $500 million. Without government help, it would have gone out of business around the first of the year.

After rejecting the original plan, the government had said the UAW and Canadian Auto Workers unions must make further concessions, including the UAW taking equity in the company for at least half of a $10.6 billion payment into a union-run trust that will take over retiree health care costs starting next year.

The CAW ratified a concessionary deal on Sunday which CAW President Ken Lewenza said makes labor costs competitive with non-unionized Toyota in Canada.

Working against a deadline that would fall-due on Wednesday, Ap29, nowhere in this rescue-programme and restructuring of the enterprise and workers' salaries (down!) is there any sl+test opening for a national reconsideration of the theory and presuppositions that dictate single-union bargaining units, instead of a multi-union representation according to the workforce's diverse and more principial choices.

-- Economix