GM Joins Chrysler, UAW In Killing 'Jobs Banks'

General Motors and the United Auto Workers announced today the end of the UAW "jobs banks" for laid-off GM workers, one of the last vestiges of unionism entitlement that helped give the labor movement a black eye.

At jobs banks, union workers get paid for -- and this has been famously chronicled -- sitting around and watching TV, or just sitting around, not even watching TV.

Workers at such jobs banks get most of their pay and benefits for, essentially, doing nothing.

The UAW was raked by lawmakers during December for allowing the jobs banks to continue, even as UAW leadership joined the heads of the Big Three automakers in asking for federal aid.

Chrysler and the UAW agreed to scuttle its remaining jobs banks earlier this week, affecting 1,000 workers. The GM jobs bank would affect 1,600 workers.

Now that the laid-off workers who had populated the jobs banks actually will get laid off, they must file for unemployment which, combined with GM subsidies, will account for about 72 percent of their pay, a GM spokesman said.

-- Frank Ahrens
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