The US car manfacturers hit a hurdle in their bid to get bailed out.
A $US14 billion ($20.8 billion) emergency bail-out for US car makers collapsed in the Senate Thursday night after the United Auto Workers refused to accede to Republican demands for swift wage cuts.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was "terribly disappointed'' about the demise of an emerging bipartisan deal to rescue Detroit's Big Three automakers.
He spoke shortly after Republicans left a closed-door meeting where they balked at giving the automakers federal aid unless their powerful union agreed to slash wages next year to bring them into line with those of Japanese carmakers.
Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, a strong bail-out supporter, said the union was willing to make the cuts - but not until 2011.
Reid was working to set a swift test vote on the measure Thursday night, but it was just a formality.
The bill was virtually certain to fail to reach the 60-vote threshold it would need to clear to advance.
Reid called the bill's collapse "a loss for the country,'' adding "I dread looking at Wall Street tomorrow. It's not going to be a pleasant sight.''
The implosion followed an unprecedented marathon set of talks in Washington among labor, the auto industry and lawmakers who bargained into the night in efforts to salvage the auto bailout at a time of soaring job losses and widespread economic turmoil.
"In the midst of already deep and troubling economic times, we are about to add to that by walking away,'' said Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, the Banking Committee chairman who led negotiations on the package.
Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the Republican point man in the talks, said the two sides had been tantalisingly close to a deal, but the union's refusal to agree wage concessions by a specific date in 2009 kept them apart.
The autoworkers' contract doesn't expire until 2011.
"We were about three words away from a deal,'' said Corker. "We solved everything substantively and about three words keep us from reaching a conclusion.''
There you go. It doesn't seem right any which way does it?
It's one thing to be bailing out banks in order to shore up the financial sector; it's another thing entirely to be spending public money on bailing out large, failed corporations.
Then, there's the issue of the sort of corporations that are getting bailed out: These are manufacturers of cars that mostly did not heed the signs that petroleum prices might go up; they're also the corporations that obstinately refused to countenance Global Warming and Climate Change in the face of mounting evidence. Instead, they ideologically produced a certain kind of large, gas-guzzling car that flew in the face of such concerns.
Naturally the market turned its back - much like how the Australian market has turned its back on Australia films, I might add - and now they've hit a rough patch and so they want government money to help them along.
These corporations also have a layered management system, with an astounding number of executives and managers and whatnot pulling down enormous salaries. In a time when companies have been getting leaner, these top execs for these companies have been pulling down huge salaries that are disproportionate to their own productivity.
And now, these companies want the Unions to give up the agreement they made that covers them until 2011, just so that the House Republicans can feel good about themselves. It's a right schmozzle.
Then, the Union won't negotiate; they'd rather see the company go down. There's something incredibly bloody-minded about that too.
Add onto the list the Republicans who are insisting on the Unions taking a pay cut, or else they'll just let the suckers all go down. I know that the Big 3 US Car manufacturers are asking for an obscene bail out, but it's sure as hell not the fault of the unions they are where they are.
Colour me unimpressed with all of it.
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