McAlinden says GM might not survive without deeper concessions, and UAW President Ronald Gettelfinger understands the risk.
In recent weeks, Gettelfinger had made clear his desire that Chrysler remain part of DaimlerChrysler.
Richard Wagoner invited UAWPresident Ronald Gettelfinger for a personal tour of the Detroit auto show.
Mr Gettelfinger's fresh spirit of compromise has much to do with preserving what membership he can.
Let's hope Mr. Gettelfinger at least sends him a Christmas card this year.
But Gettelfinger also knows what rank-and-file members are willing to ratify: Only 59% of Ford workers ratified the concessions.
Gettelfinger again Thursday called on Congress and the Bush administration to act immediately.
Mr Gettelfinger may have concluded that a showdown with GM will do little to solve the ills of his union.
And Ford chief William Clay Ford Jr. inserted into his negotiating lineup an executive whom Gettelfinger is said to trust.
The challenge for more convivial union leaders, like Mr Gettelfinger, however, is to find a role when firms are in decline.
But in a fiery speech to convention delegates, Gettelfinger vowed the union would not stop fighting for the rights of its members.
But its new president, Ronald L. Gettelfinger, is trying to rebuild its dwindling membership by agreeing to different pay scales for different kinds of work.
"Everything the UAW has fought for at the bargaining table is under attack, " Gettelfinger told 1, 400 delegates gathered at the UAW's constitutional convention in Las Vegas.
Ron Gettelfinger, the president of the United Auto Workers union, got his members to accept two-tier wages and big concessions on the health-care and retirement plans.
The union's leader, Ron Gettelfinger, said that payments of billions of dollars into health-care funds for retired workers, due to be made by 2010, could be delayed.
Ron Gettelfinger, the head of UAW, says the VEBA being proposed under this new contract will secure the health care benefits of General Motors retirees for 80 years.
Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ) usually is softer, and the new UAW president, Ron Gettelfinger , came out of the Ford bargaining unit.
So it was last Thursday night that Mr. Gettelfinger rejected the deal offered by Senate Republicans for interim bailout money to keep General Motors and Chrysler alive for a few more months.
Ron Gettelfinger, the sole American employee representative on DaimlerChrysler's board, and the United Auto Workers union president, had also opposed selling Chrysler to a private-equity suitor because it could spell job losses.
The chief executives of the Big Three, as well as UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, have spent the last two days on Capitol Hill trying to convince lawmakers that bankruptcy is not an option.
And here are Mr. Gettelfinger's remarks last Friday on PBS's "NewsHour": "The men and women of the UAW are the only ones that have been at the bargaining table making concessions, " the UAW chief said.
"We are satisfied now that the decision has been made so that our membership and management can focus on designing, engineering and manufacturing the finest-quality products for the future success of the Chrysler Group, " Gettelfinger said.
"The skeptics who say this is the 'twilight of the UAW, ' that we're 'toast, ' that our epitaph has already been written, don't know who we are and where we came from, " Gettelfinger bellowed to roaring applause.
Mr. Gettelfinger is right that the union has made major concessions to the car companies in recent years, and that states did spend tax dollars -- though probably not as much as the union contends -- to attract Japanese, German and Korean auto makers to build factories.
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