Detroit Back For More Smack

The UAW announced late Tuesday that it reached an agreement with Detroit’s Big 3 automakers over contract concessions, a condition required as part of the initial $17.4 billion bailout pact reached with Congress last December.

But get this – the UAW’s agreed to limit overtime, change certain work rules, cut lump sum cash bonuses and get rid of cost-of-living pay raises to help reduce companies’ labor costs. Cut lump sum cash bonuses? That’s awfully big of them. I realize these bonuses probably pale in comparison to those handed out on Wall Street while Lehman Brothers burned, but isn’t the symbolism sort of the same?

And GM is justifying this additional bailout by saying the federal government would have to spend at least $100 billion in bankruptcy to guarantee pension payments and other obligations. But as Paul Ingrassia writes in today’s Wall Street Journal, they’ve requested almost half that amount in bailout money already – and they will surely be back for more.