Bailout Watch 435: Chrysler to CAW, Canadian Gov: Pay-Up or Die

Followers of the Motown meltdown may have detected a strong whiff of mafioso about the whole enterprise. Did I say enterprise? That sounds a bit too industrious, even though the automakers have been working hard to turn $7 million worth of your hard-earned taxes into about $35 billion in additional bailout bucks. On the other hand, we have the term “criminal enterprise.” As in you pay me my money or I’m gonna hurt you. If you still don’t pay, I’m gonna NSFWing kill you. (Organized crime may be organized but it’s not terribly clever.) To wit [via Automotive News]:

Chrysler LLC said today it may close its plants in Canada unless it gets sufficient labor concessions as well as government aid and resolution of a tax dispute.

In case you were thinking the recent CAW agreement with GM shows the way out of that particular part of ChyrCo’s Mexican standoff (also a NAFTA member!), Co-Prez “Tommy Gun” LaSorda’s got news for you, after the jump.

“Failure to satisfactorily resolve these three factors — the labor costs, government assistance and, of course, the transfer tax — will place our Canadian manufacturing operations at a significant disadvantage relative to our manufacturing operations in North America and may very well impair our ability to continue to produce in Canada,” Chrysler President Tom LaSorda said.

LaSorda also said the Canadian Auto Workers agreement reached with General Motors over the weekend would not eliminate even half the labor cost gap with the Japanese plants operating in Canada.

“The current agreement with GM is unacceptable and we have to break their legs,” LaSorda said.

Just kidding, pattern. He said pattern. I wonder how his union leader father feels about all this. Tommy. Listen to me, Tommy. Our enemies may change, but the famiglia remains the same. Capisco?

Anyway, LaSorda also demanded $2.3B in Canadian tribute—sorry, “loans”—to stop Don Feinberg (go figure) from pulling the plug on ChryCo Canada.

Will someone whack this company already?