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By Doug Cunningham

Senior Obama administration officials said Sunday night that GM will file for bankruptcy Monday. For workers GM’s bankruptcy filing will throw decades of building a blue-collar middle class into reverse. The real issue for workers is not whether a much smaller, restructured GM can emerge from bankruptcy to be a “viable” new company. The real question is where will workers stand in this restructured auto world? Obama administration officials say the qualified pension plans for both hourly and salaried workers will carried over to the new GM and remain intact and benefits will paid as normal. UAW President Ron Gettlefinger says 20-25 percent of UAW workers’ benefits were given back in the latest round of concessions – a $1.3 billion per year loss for autoworkers. The right to strike is gone for six years, but Gettelfinger insists the UAW still has power and is ready for whatever GM does.

[Gettelfinger]: “The mediation, in the event that we couldn’t reach an agreement – I do not see that as diluting us. There are other provisions in the agreement that we have a right to strike over. And we are prepared for whatever eventually happens here.”

GM was once responsible for $80 billion earned by workers to pay for retiree health care. The UAW agreed to form the VEBA trust fund and take over the obligation cutting GM's cost to $57 billion. That was slashed to $20 billion. Sunday night a Senior Obama administration official said the VEBA will now get just a $2 and a half billion note, $6.5 billion in preferred stock, 17.5 percent of GM common stock and warrants to buy another two and a half percent. And U.S. workers will suffer even if a smaller GM survives. GM can import more cars to sell under the GM nameplate and lower two-tier wage system for new hires pays them half the current going hourly pay. From its peak near 1.5 million members in 1979, the UAW is down now to roughly 400,000. The collapse of the U.S. auto industry and of the United Auto Workers union's power is a terrible blow to future generations of U.S. workers who will no longer have that path to the blue-collar middle class.

[GM is closing several plants and cutting at least 21,000 jobs. The company is expected to announce specific plants later Monday. The federal government is pledging $30.1 billion in bankruptcy financing for GM in return for a majority equity stake in the company.]