Chrysler exec: failure could spark depression
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
Associated Press
December 3, 2008
A top Chrysler executive warned Wednesday that a carmaker collapse could send the economy spiraling into a depression, while the United Auto Workers agreed to new concessions for their companies.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Jim Press, Chrysler’s vice chairman, said the U.S. automakers were “down to months left,” as industry officials ratcheted up a fierce lobbying push to persuade Congress to approve as much as $34 billion in emergency aid.
“We’re on the brink with the U.S. auto manufacturing industry,” Press told The Associated Press in an interview. “If we have a catastrophic failure of one of these car companies, in this tender environment for the economy, it’s a huge blow. It could trigger a depression.”
The UAW, scrambling to preserve jobs and benefits that could disappear with an automaker collapse, agreed at an emergency meeting in Detroit to delay the companies’ payments to a multibillion-dollar, union-run health care trust and scale back a jobs bank in which laid-off workers are paid most of their salaries.
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