Opel has received a new lease on life. Nobody knows how long the lease will last, but Opel is an important step ahead and gained an even more important ally in its beggathon for state aid. Opel cut a deal with its unions, led by labor leader Klaus Franz.

“For much of the past year, Klaus Franz has been a thorn in General Motors Co.’s side,” wrote the Wall Street Journal. Franz “has blamed the European car unit’s troubles on its American parent, saying GM was ‘filled with yes-men’ and that it had a ‘centralized planning system worse than in East Germany.’ Now, GM needs to make nice with Mr. Franz.” With their backs to the wall, GM finally paid the price and made nice.

The Euro and the UK Pound go into a tailspin. Greece requires a bailout. Spain & Portugal could be next on the default list. The economy is in tatters. The car market is shrinking. The government announces spending cuts, on top of people’s reluctance to spend. On this dire backdrop, does it surprise you that workers at the Vauxhall plants (they’re actually Opel plants re-badged “Vauxhall”) have chosen to accept a pay freeze in return for job security? The Times of the UK reports that the 3200+ workers located in the UK are close to agreeing to a 2 year pay freeze. Union officials in the UK believe that the pay freeze is an acceptable hit to take in return for job security. They also believe that when it comes to the union vote, it will be passed through with little complaints. There is of course one slight flaw in the plan….

When the music finally stopped at Old GM, the UAW’s VEBA fund was left holding a lot of IOUs. On those merits, the union’s benefit trust was given about 17.5 percent of the equity in the bailed-out and re-organized New GM. UAW leadership has always maintained that having its membership’s benefits staked on the company’s financial performance would not change its mission, and that VEBA’s representative on GM’s board, Steve Girsky, would operate free from union influence. And one hopes he would, considering he’s being paid well to advise CEO Ed Whitacre. But the tension between GM’s IPO sprint and the UAW’s non-VEBA interests never goes away, and the Wall Street Journal [sub] is reporting that the latest spat is over the old hobbyhorse of buyouts.

Ultimate Factories – Ferrari

Bloomberg reports that Ferrari workers walked off the job for four hours yesterday, in protest of planned job cuts and production idling. Ferrari has announced that it plans to eliminate 120 office jobs and 150 production jobs, or nearly ten percent of its workforce. The Italian sportscar firm has also said it will put 600 workers on a week-long furlough next week, as it idles production of engines for its sister brand Maserati at a Maranello plant. Last year, Ferrari built about 4,500 engines for Maserati, about half of the 2008 number, as sales of the brand fell.

Yesterday, we greeted news that Detroit had reached wage parity with transplants by noting that it hardly makes the UAW look great in the eyes of its membership. Sure enough, UAW boss-in-waiting Bob King is firing back in today’s Detroit Free Press, arguing that a return to a 16m unit market would yield “astronomical” profits to GM and Chrysler. As a result, he said,

There was equality of sacrifice, there’s got to be equality of gain. It’s our responsibility to make sure that in that turnaround, our members are treated fairly

Speaking at the same Detroit conference on the auto bailout that Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom attended, the Center for Automotive Research’s Sean McAlinden proclaimed the end of Detroit’s era of unsustainable high wages. In 2007, said McAlinden, building a car in North America cost GM about $1,400 more per car than it did Toyota, thanks largely to a $950 health care charge. Since then, GM’s bailout and renegotiated wage and benefit contracts with the union have actually brought GM’s hourly compensation to just under what the CAR says the transplants pay. The AP reports that McAlinden’s estimate of GM’s average hourly worker salary is $69,368 while the transplant average is $70,185. Better still is McAlinden’s prediction that

between 2013 and 2015, Toyota could even be paying $10 more per hour than GM unless the Japanese company reacts and lowers wages.

And all it took was giving the UAW a $17.5 stake in the new GM!

We’re right on the verge of having 12 million in vehicle sales

UAW boss Ron Gettelfinger waxes optimistic in a recent speech at Wayne State University [via The Freep]. “Not so fast,” says Automotive News [sub]’s delightfully cranky senior editor, John K. Teahen Jr., in a piece appropriately titled 12 million sales this year? Don’t hold your breath.

As many as 800 workers at Denmark’s Carlsberg brewery walked off the job yesterday, after management restricted beer drinking to lunch hours and the company cafeteria. Previously, workers had access to beer around their work sites, and could drink at their own discretion. By now you’re probably either Googling “Carlsberg job openings” or wondering what the car angle to this story is. Actually, it’s more of a truck angle. Take it away, Associated Press [via Google]:

As if to confirm that GM’s benefit obligation situation could actually be worse than today’s GAO report lets on, Automotive News [sub] is reporting that the UAW has sued GM over $450m in unfunded healthcare obligations for Delphi retirees. GM promised to fund a $450m Voluntary Employee Benefit Association for Delphi retirees in 2007, and Delphi’s bankruptcy court confirmed the commitment in last October. But, according to the UAW suit:

the UAW made a written demand that the company honor its contractual obligation to make the foregoing payment [last October… but] that UAW demand was rejected and since that time the company has failed and refused to make the contractually required payment.

That obligation apparently was not voided by GM’s bankruptcy, although The General’s spokesfolks have yet to officially comment on the UAW’s suit.

It would be impossible to blame Detroit’s decades-long decline on a single factor, but if one were to make a list, defined pension obligations to workers would be somewhere very near the top. Thanks in large part to the unionization of America’s auto industry, Detroit has groaned under the weight of crushing pension obligations since time immemorial. And, according to a new report by the Goveernment Accountability Office [ full report in PDF format available here], last year’s bailout of GM and Chrysler has not eliminated the existential threat that these obligations pose to the industry. In fact, the taxpayer’s “investment” in GM and Chrysler appears only to have exposed the public to even an greater risk of catastrophic pension plan failure.

Unheard-of news are emanating from Rüsselsheim. So unheard-of that Automobilwoche found it necessary to send out an Extra! Extra! Lesen Sie all about it e-mail to its subscribers: GM’s Opel, the very same company that wants to shed 8,000 of its 48,000 jobs in Europe, is short of people. They are hiring! One reason: Jobs are being exported from the U.S.A. to Europe.

According to the Detroit News, the United Auto Workers lost nearly 76,000 members in 2009, dropping membership to 355,191, the lowest level since the end of the second world war. UAW membership has fallen nearly in half since 2001, when the union boasted 701,818 members, and has been in steady decline since peaking at 1.53m in 1979. Ironically, the drop in membership comes as the UAW is seeking to expand outside of the contracting auto industry, but gains from organizing teaching assistants, auto dealership employees, health care workers and casino dealers have not been able to stem the tide of losses from the auto industry. And though the union scored something of a coup by securing representation at the new Fisker plant in Delaware, another 4,600 members will be lost when NUMMI closes on April 1. These losses, combined with the loss of 50 local offices, and the union’s inability to organize workers at transplant auto plants all seem to indicate continued decline for the union, which is widely seen as a key contributor to the decades-long collapse of of America’s automakers. But don’t write off the UAW just yet.

The UAW’s VEBA health care trust fund currently owns 17.5 percent of GM and 55 percent of Chrysler, but with IPO plans still nebulous at both, the fund is short on options for improving cash flow. Remember, the union doesn’t want to own these companies… it would have preferred cash, thanks. But since bailout negotiations allowed the automakers to fund their VEBA obligations with stock and warrants, VEBA has little choice but to monetize them. And while GM and Chrysler limp towards an eventual IPO, VEBA’s 362.4m Ford stock warrants are actually doing pretty well relative to their $9.20 exercise price. So it’s no huge surprise to hear [via Automotive News [sub]] that VEBA is planning on dumping its entire allotment of Ford warrants, in a move that could be worth “at least” $1.27b. And it’s no coincidence that this news comes on the same day that Ford is announcing a $3b debt prepayment, and the day after its sold Volvo to Geely for $1.8b.

Opels head shop steward Klaus Franz is mightily mad at Opel’s CEO Nick Reilly. Reilly told the London Times that the Ampera, Opel’s counterpart to the Volt, may be built in the Ellesmere Port plant in the UK:“The chances are quite good that the Ampera will come to Ellesmere Port as it is close in production terms to the Astra and will share many components,” Reilly said. In the meantime, Berlin cues Roberta Flack’s “Killing me softly” as a prelude for Opel’s funeral.

Media from Associated Press to The Business Standard of India are abuzz with reports that Fiat (the company) is planning to cut 5000 jobs and will be spinning off its car division this summer. The stock market seems to like the idea: Fiat’s shares rose 4.15 percent.

Workers at the former Toyota-GM joint venture NUMMI have approved a severance offer from Toyota. Union officials won’t reveal the exact amount involved, and while the Detroit Free Press reports that workers will make a “minimum” of $21,175, the San Jose Mercury says the deal “gives an average severance package of $54,000.” Could it be that some union brothers are more equal than others? What the Freep leaves out is that $21,175 minimum applies to 300 of NUMMI’s 4,700 workers who are already on disability leave. Workers with over 25 years of experience will receive $68,500.

The Detroit News reports that the United Auto Workers are gearing up for battle for a surprising new cause: greenhouse gas emissions standards. Alan Reuther, Legislative Director of the newly-green union, wrote congress recently to warn against a bill authored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski which would prevent the EPA from declaring C02 a danger to public health, saying:

The UAW also is deeply concerned that overturning EPA’s endangerment finding would unravel the historic agreement on one national standard for fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions for light-duty vehicles that was negotiated by the Obama administration last year

All kinds of strange news are coming from GM’s Korean foster child Daewoo. Two days ago, Daewoo CEO Mike Arcamone announced: “In 2010, GM Daewoo will be profitable. That is my target.” That didn’t get much traction. Reporters wanted to know how bad last year’s numbers were. Arcamone remained tight-lipped. He admitted red ink for 2009, how much remains anybody’s guess. In 2008, it was $773m worth of red. Last October Daewoo-is-me had to be bailed out by the bailed-out GM to the tune of $413m. Arcamone has some soothing news: “We currently do not seek any other financial support from our creditors.” The operative word is “currently.” There is one way to stop the hemorrhage for good: Pack it in.

If you were a company at time of recession, belt-tightening and countries on the verge of bankruptcy, you’d think that registering record profits and growing global market share at times like these would keep everyone at your company happy, right? Wrong. Members of Hyundai Motor’s union are angry. Livid. Up in arms. And as students of Asian cultures will confirm, Koreans can get, shall we say, a bit hot and bothered about causes close to their hearts.

Koreatimes reports that despite pleas from management for peaceful resolutions, their union has demanded that Hyundai stop expanding overseas and guarantee job security at home – or else.

You don’t want to be traveling in or to Europe these days. In Germany, Lufthansa’s pilots went on strike this morning, grounding 3200 planes. “The largest strike in the history of German aviation” ( Die Welt) paralyzed German air traffic, and caused jams on the ground as travelers switched from planes to trains and automobiles.

Meanwhile next door in France, a nation is running out of gas. Workers at the six refineries owned by the country’s biggest oil group, Total, have been striking for more than a month. The work stoppage threatens to spread “to the two French oil refineries owned by US group Exxon Mobil, where strikes are planned for Tuesday,” reports the BBC.

Here are the first reactions to Nick Reilly’s turn-around and begging plan for Opel. In one word: “Booooh!”

Roland Koch, Premier of Hesse, where Opel has its headquarters, where most of Opel’s jobs and countless suppliers are, should be most interested in the survival. What was his reaction? “According to our first assessment, it will be necessary that GM as the owner will increase its contribution considerably,” he said to Das Autohaus. Translation: “Put money on the table. Then we talk.”

Little know factoid: In 2008, Opel was the 7th largest employer in Hesse, followed by Volkswagen, only 2,800 jobs behind Opel, most in a parts factory and distribution center in structurally weak Kassel. When Opel has finished its reduction in force plan, VW will provide more jobs to the state than Opel. Koch knows which side his bread is buttered.

The unions, which should be most interested in preserving jobs, immediately shot down the plan.

As GM tools up for production of its Volt extended-range electric car, Automotive News [sub] has noticed something interesting: workers at GM’s new battery pack assembly plant are not represented by the United Auto Workers. Located in the heart of UAW territory (Brownstown Township, MI), the Volt battery plant represents the very jobs that local politicians and GM leadership hailed as the green future of the auto industry. When the plant opened, GM Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre waxed eloquent about the opportunities:

The development of electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt is creating entire new sectors in the auto industry – an “ecosystem” of battery developers and recyclers, builders of home and commercial charging stations, electric motor suppliers and much more. These companies and universities are creating new jobs in Michigan and across the U.S. – green jobs – and they’re doing it by developing new technology, establishing new manufacturing capability, and strengthening America’s long-term competitiveness.

As long as they do so without UAW representation, apparently. Needless to say, if GM can get away with using non-union workers at a crucial plant that’s supposed to represent the firm’s future, things aren’t looking so good for our friends in organized labor.

This week, Opel will embark on a pan-European begging tour. Applications for government aid will be sent to Germany’s central government, Germany’s states with Opel plants, and to the European countries where Opel has a presence. A business plan, and an expert opinion from the little known CPA firm Warth & Klein will complete the package, writes Das Autohaus. Target of the funds drive are €2.7b. Opel management still counts on wage concessions of €265m per year over five years (a total of €1.3b). Unions and the Opel Works Council already have said “nein” to the concessions. Governments want to see the paperwork first,

Opel’s turnaround negotiations with German unions have gone pear-shaped again, as top labour rep Klaus Franz left talks denouncing GM’s decision to cut 9972 jobs instead of the promised 8300, according to The Wall Street Journal. “Fundamental questions have not been answered,” fretted Franz. “Management’s plans seem to change on a daily basis.” Rudi Kennes, a labour representative from Antwerp, concurred, saying the atmosphere between management and the unions “has never been as bad as now.” He added ominously that “(Mr Reilly) needs to answer our questions.”

A lot of what you hear about Steve Girsky sounds decidedly positive: an outspoken critic of GM, Girsky lasted less than a year as Rick Wagoner’s “ roving aide-de-camp,” reportedly due to frustration with management heel-dragging. He even earned TTAC’s “lesser-of-two-evils” endorsement to be Presidential Car Czar over Steve “Chooch” Rattner. When he was appointed to be the UAW rep on GM’s board, representing the union’s VEBA trust which owns 17.5 percent of GM’s stock, he was lauded as someone who could keep his union allegiances at bay. But as special advisor to GM CEO/Chairman Ed Whitacre, Girsky had better be prioritizing GM’s best interests. Reuters reports that he’s being paid a cool $900k in stock grants for his advice. That’s in addition to $200k director’s salary and reimbursement for “living expenses and travel to and from Detroit.” Not bad considering the fuss people are making over compensation at TARP-recipient financial institutions.

Thanks to the unionization of the US auto industry, its politics (and accordingly, those of the state of Michigan) tend to be of the center-left persuasion. This tendency was doubtless aggravated over the last year, as a congressional bailout of the industry was denied by southern Republican senators. But even in Michigan, the union-industry alliance isn’t strong enough to counter the trend towards ever more divisive politics, as two recent stories show some of the ideological cracks forming in this now highly politicized industry. First,according to the Freep, the National Tax Day Tea Party will re-open last year’s political wounds by staging a rally outside the RenCen during the Detroit Auto Show this year. The idea behind the rally is to “make a peaceful yet clear statement against government takeover of America,” specifically the government ownership of General Motors. Though it’s clearly an empty gesture intended to rally political support more than change anything, it will be a jarring contrast to the usual convivial mood at the NAIAS. And it’s just one of several ways in which the politicization of the industry is becoming steadily less containable.

GM’s Lordstown, OH plant was something of a poster boy for all that went wrong with the UAW over the past several decades, reports the New York Times. Poor quality, worker sabotage and crippling strikes led to the coining of the term “Lordstown Syndrome” as a symbol of UAW recalcitrance. Lordstown’s workers were so feisty that they even picketed their own union hall in the 1980s. Now, with the legacy of the Vega hanging over their heads, and the possibility of plant closure only narrowly avoided by securing the Chevy Cruze manufacturing assignment, the members of UAW Local 1112 are singing a different tune. “We were the bad dog on the street at one time,” 1112’s shop Chairman Ben Strickland tells the Times’ Nick Bunkley. “We’ve got 3,000 lives to worry about. The cockiness and the arrogance that we once portrayed — we definitely got a lot more humble.” That, it turns out, is in large part due to General Motors’ spectacular fall from grace.

Ford has wrapped up some much-needed financial wrangling today, as it struggles with with its monstrous pile of debt. According to Automotive News [sub], Ford transferred $13.2b in debt and about $4b in cash to the UAW-run health care trust fund, completing a long-awaited liability consolidation. $1.4b of the transfer was a scheduled payment on a $6.7b note, while $500m more was a prepayment on that note. Ford paid $610m (cash) on another $6.5 billion note, transferred $620m from a temporary account and $3.5b from an internal VEBA fund and handed over warrants to purchase 362 million shares of Ford common stock at $9.20 per share. All together, the move reportedly adds $7b in debt to Ford’s balance sheet.

First, they sold the most amount of cars in the world, then, they started cost cutting and now, Toyota are taking another big step towards becoming GM. The Charleston Daily Mail reports that the managers of Toyota’s manufacturing plant in Buffalo, West Virginia have allowed workers to distribute union literature during breaks at the plant. There’d been grumblings about unionisation for some time. Last month, some Toyota employees, (with the backing of the UAW, naturally), filed a grievance with the National Labour Relations Board’s regional office in Cincinnati. They wanted to distribute union material but were stopped by Toyota managers. Jeff Moore, a Toyota vice president at the West Virginia plant, reversed that policy.

Whitacre is a completely different type of manager than what you saw at GM in the past. It’s refreshing to talk to someone that gained his experience outside of the company. He truly wants our cooperation, he doesn’t want any confrontation at all. Just the opposite, he says that only together can we make GM, Opel and Vauxhall successful.

Opel union boss Klaus Franz expresses sudden enthusiasm for working with GM’s new leadership. And that’s a hell of a turnaround from his previous opinions on GM management, including (but not limited to) his assesment that “GM does not enjoy any credibility or faith in the eyes of the public or the (German) government.”

It’s been a while since we’ve heard the word “buyout” echoing out of Detroit, as 2008 marked the year in which auto industry employees finally started to be fired like everyone else: without a hefty severance kiss-off. Ford, on the other hand, did not get a shot at free house-cleaning in bankruptcy court, so it’s bringing back buyouts. According to Market Watch, the Blue Oval is offering blue-collar employees a $50,000 lump sum payment and a $25,000 voucher for a new vehicle or another $20,000 lump sum, as well as six months of health insurance coverage. There’s even an extra $40k for workers of “a certain age.” But this being Detroit, employee benefits are either feast or famine. While Ford’s workers are being offered cash for their jobs, the former Ford parts division Visteon announced today that it is seeking to dump pensions for 21,000 retirees in bankruptcy, following Delphi into yet another stealthy yet popular form of indirect automaker bailout.

UAW Boss Ron Gettelfinger plans to retire next year, and the search is on to replace the man who led the union through the political minefield that was the auto bailout. But the union’s support for Bob King, who led negotiations with Ford, could open up divisions within the union, reports Automotive News [sub]. King followed the Gettelfinger line, offering Ford many of the same concessions it granted GM and Chrysler during the government bailout that transferred large stakes in those companies to the union’s VEBA fund. Those concessions to Ford, which would have preserved the UAW’s decades-long policy of treating the Detroit automakers equally, were rejected by the same union rank-and-file that must now ratify King’s nomination.

Responding to calls by Volvo’s unions for an investigation of Geely, Volvo management is calling the unions’ statements “almost xenophobic.” CEO Stephen Odell, and Personell Manager Björn Sällström of Volvo Cars have sent out letter to their empolyees, urging to modify their attitude towards their potential new employer, Geely. The letter is a response, not only to the unions’ public demand for a Geely investigation, but also the fact that these statements have sparked quite an anti-Chinese-business-methods campaign in readers’ letters to Swedish medias.

There’s no love lost between carmudgeon Peter Delorenzo and GM’s failed Car Czar, the exec whose singular inability to create compelling branding or class-leading products helped transform the world’s largest automaker into a nationalized welfare queen. No wait. Sorry. The self-styled Autoextremist hates the United Auto Workers (UAW). And now that the UAW has rejected a contract with Ford that would have given it parity with post-C11 GM and Chrysler, Sweet Pete has unleashed the dogs of demagoguery. “Wait a minute, wasn’t it the rampant wage and benefit increases over the last three decades that contributed immeasurably to the domestic auto industry’s demise? And yes, it took two parties to make those deals, but really? After everything that has transpired in the last year the union is still clinging to the notion that they actually have a dog in this hunt when it comes to getting this industry off of the ground again? That somehow, some way, when things get all back to normal again they can go right back to the “M.O.” that helped bring this industry to its knees in the first place? I’ve got one word for the UAW and its behavior: Reprehensible.” DeLorenzo’s ire is not entirely misplaced, but it’s close . . .

Who in their right minds thought that the United Auto Workers (UAW) rank and file would ratify a contract that included a no-strike clause? That would be like cutting off your balls to spite your penis. And so they haven’t (ratified the contract that is). Sure, Chrysler has one of them no-strike deals, but they’re dead in the water. Ford’s on its way back to profit! Ford’s CEO said so himself. Many times. As Alan Mulally and UAW Prez Ron Gettelfinger have learned, if you talk out of both sides of your mouth, you’re heading for a big old bitch slapping. On Friday, Big Ron told the Detroit Free Press that the UAW won’t return to the bargaining table if the measure was defeated. So Ford’s unionized work force will carry on as before, until the existing accord (so to speak) expires in 2011. The rejection will not play well with Ford’s investors, who were looking for the Blue Oval Boys to reduce their labor costs to match those of the transplants and cross-town welfare queens.

By last Friday, it was clear that the United Auto Workers rank and file found their new, no-strike contract rank, and filed their objections during voting. In other words, the union’s members rejected the deal. Which left Ford CEO Alan Mulally’s rep seriously dinged. After all, Big Al’s been talking-up Ford’s return to profitability ever since he banked that first $25 million paycheck. The union vote against the strike was a vote for Big Al’s plan. If he’d kept his mouth shut or, better yet, constantly warned against looming collapse, the UAW might have made the ultimate concession. But then investors wouldn’t have dumped more money into Ford and the Ford family members signing Mulally’s big ass paychecks would have been seriously spooked. Big Al can’t win from losing, as the Brits would say.

When the Detroit uses the word “misunderstanding” in the lede graph of a story about The United Auto Workers (UAW), you just know there is some serious negotiation, posturing, ass-covering and ass-kicking going on behind the scenes. In this case, it seems that the union’s members are not happy about a no-strike clause in their proposed contract with Ford. “The Detroit News has learned that the [no-strike] language, which was included in recent contract changes the UAW negotiated with General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, was mandated by the Obama administration as a condition of its bailout of the two companies. It was designed to ensure the competitive gains that were forced through by the White House could not be reversed in 2011 contract negotiations between GM and Chrysler and the UAW, according to people familiar with the situation.” What’s this got to do with Ford? Can you say “pattern bargaining?” It seems that the UAW, who practically invented the term, can’t quite bring themselves to use it now. Or keep their members in the loop.

The tentative deal between Ford and UAW leadership has predictably run into trouble as it moves towards a vote by local leadership. Even though the deal would still fall short of the agreement reached with GM and Chrysler and Ford has sweetened the deal with $1,000 bonuses and 2,000 extra jobs, the union’s workers are spinning the deal into a union-breaking giveaway. “We just won’t have a union anymore if we do this,” a Dearborn Truck plant bargaining committee member tells the Freep. But the rank-and-file resistance is creating divisions between Ford, union leadership and workers. Even UAW President Ron Gettelfinger admits that “isn’t a concessionary agreement,” putting workers at odds with everyone else involved in negotiations. And their motivations for turning down the deal have to be bigger than mere frustration over $500m in labor savings already granted to Ford.

Bloomberg is reporting that a deal between Ford and the UAW has been reached. The deal is said to include a ban on most strikes, and wage freezes for new employees. In short, most of what it offered the automakers it holds equity stakes in. Of course, the deal still has to be approved by plant-level UAW leadership which tends to have a harder time understanding that not giving Ford these concessions makes the UAW look like its strangling a competitor to the OEMs it owns. “There’s a lot of sentiment against concessions inside the plant,” explains one Dearborn-based union. This despite the fact that Ford still won’t achieve parity with GM and Chrysler.

The Los Angeles Times reports Toyota has requested $2m in state training funds for workers at its NUMMI plant. The only problem? Toyota has already announced plans to close the Fremont, California, factory. The State of California’s Employment Training Panel had previously agreed to pay back the $2m Toyota spent for training at NUMMI, but since then Toyota and GM made the decision to end their joint venture at NUMMI and end production there. Toyota’s argument was summarized in a statement by NUMMI saying, “These skills have made our team members greater contributors to NUMMI and will make them more attractive to prospective employers when they conclude their employment here in April 2010.” But don’t count on that argument gaining much traction.

The UAW’s Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association funds were originally negotiated with each of the Detroit automakers, creating three separate funds to handle obligations for each of the OEM’s unionized workforces. But the turmoil of the bailout has left the VEBA funds gasping for cash. With the manufacturers unable to meet their VEBA obligations in cash, the union was forced to take significant stakes in GM and Chrysler instead. Now, the WSJ reports that the three VEBA funds will be unified into a single administrative body. Each automaker will have a separate account within the overall VEBA structure, but the unification should help keep down administrative costs. Still, the fact that significant amounts of Chrysler and GM equity will be held by the same body raises some important concerns.

The Freep reports that Ford officials are meeting with the United Auto Workers Union today, to renegotiate elements of their labor contract. Reducing pay for entry-level workers and reducing skilled-trades job classifications are said to be at the top of Ford’s to-do list. And why not? GM got the UAW to agree to streamlined skilled-trade positions, an entry-level wage freeze, a performance bonus freeze and a no-strike agreement. Why wouldn’t the UAW do the same for Ford, just because the Blue Oval didn’t give up major ownership stakes to the union and its allies in government?