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...Indeed, even before GM, Ford and Chrysler officials submit recovery proposals Tuesday in hopes of persuading Congress to steer aid their way, Europe has started to react. French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a four-year, 400 million-euro package to help French automakers build more environmentally friendly cars. Sarkozy also called last week for the loosening of E.U. restrictions on direct state aid to companies, restrictions established to encourage more-competitive markets in Europe. "We can't have the Americans unlocking $25 billion in loans for their three manufacturers while we would be caught up in a state-assistance regime...
Read "As GM and Ford Report Big Losses, Pressure for a New Bailout Grows...
...which has the largest number of retired employees, will have transferred some $23 billion to the new Voluntary Employee Benefit Association (VEBA), created by the contract. (That amount includes the $13.5 billion GM has already injected into the trust, plus another $9.5 billion yet to be contributed.) Ford owes $13.6 billion to its VEBA, and Chrysler, which doesn't make its finances public, owes between $6 billion and $9 billion to its new retiree-health-care trust...
From the union's perspective, the health-care benefits always represented deferred wages, says Jerry Tucker, a former member of the UAW board. In addition, as GM, Ford and Chrysler have cut their blue-collar payrolls in half, from 300,000 to 150,000, over the past three years, the health-care benefits have become more important, he says. "More than two-thirds of workers taking early retirement aren't eligible for Medicare. A lot of them didn't even want to retire," he says. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said in the fall of 2007 that the VEBA trusts would...
Read "As GM and Ford Report Big Losses, Pressure for a New Bailout Grows...