UAW Head Warns of Automaker Collapse

DETROIT -- United Auto Workers (UAW) President Ron Gettelfinger urged Congress and the Bush administration to act immediately on loans for the U.S. automakers, saying one or more of them could collapse by the end of the year without it.

Gettelfinger spoke at a Detroit news conference just as reports surfaced that a bipartisan group of auto-state senators had reached a compromise on bailing out Chrysler, Ford (F) and General Motors (GM). The deal still faces heavy opposition, however.

"Without immediate assistance, we could see, and I stress could see, a collapse of one or more of the domestic auto companies by the end of this year," Gettelfinger said. "The costs that would flow from this are simply too great."

He repeated statements he and the CEOs of the Detroit Three made in Capitol Hill testimony earlier this week that a collapse could cost 3 million jobs, plus endanger the pension and health care benefits of 1 million retirees.

As word of the compromise filtered into the news conference, Gettelfinger said he didn't want to speculate on its contents.

Although he maintained that the UAW has given up numerous concessions to the automakers since 2005, he did not shut the door on further changes.

"The UAW is at the table," he said. "We're at the table every day and we would welcome all the other stakeholders to the table to make some concessions."

Gettelfinger said the UAW has talked with automakers and made changes to contracts while they were in effect, most recently in 2005.

Warning of economic disaster, Democrats and Republicans from auto-industry states reached a deal Thursday on an alternative package that would temporarily divert money from a fuel-efficiency loan program to cover the Big Three's immediate costs. But it was unclear whether it could draw enough support to pass.

The group, led by Sens. Carl M. Levin, D-Mich. and Kit Bond, R-Mo., scheduled a news conference to announce details.

Even if agreement can be reached to consider their plan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., signaled earlier Thursday that the Senate was not likely do so until after Thanksgiving.

Reid earlier canceled plans for a vote on a bill to carve $25 billion in new loans out of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund. The Bush administration and congressional Republicans oppose that plan.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints