"Who cares what they (foreign automakers) were doing."

- anyone who cares to know why toyota and honda aren't prowling around washington with their hand out


"There have been multiple auto bailout happening around the world. "

- NOW you care what foreign automakers are doing...good! toyota, honda, and nissan are still posting profits in japan...hyundai/kia is still profitable in korea...france's peugeot-citroen, italy's fiat, and germany's BMW & volkswagen, are still posting profits...the only foreign bailout i could find was general motors opel subsidiary which is begging for a handout from the german government...where are these multiple bailouts happening? canada?


"the UAW made significant concessions since then. Such as?"

- such as the concessions made in the week prior to the senate hearing of the bailout which included: suspending the job bank program, deferring billions in payments to health care fund for retired workers that was negotiated in 2007, and the UAW opened negotiations for *more* wage concessions with management...the republicans ganged up on the union, and demanded specific wage parity with foreign automakers without similar demands from management and suppliers

the union didn't put the big-three automakers in a sales slump back in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007...that was management's fault but the senate demanded full compliance from the union (who already made big concessions) while giving management a stern look and a wag of the finger

personally, i don't think detroit deserves a bailout (at least not GM) but not because of the unions...they managed themselves into this crisis and it would be foolhardy to give the same management more money

despite how it sounds, i am not pro-union...i helped bust two attempts to unionize a business i managed...i even hired a former union organizer to counter the same union's attempts to take over the staff (an arrangement that concluded with an exchange of gunfire in the parking lot)...as the current situation proves, unions are expensive, and stifle the ability of a business to adjust to changing market conditions...but in this case, the problems of the big three detroit automakers are bigger than that...i think at least one of them would fail even if the UAW agreed to everything the senate requested of them