Southern auto workers resent bailout

SMYRNA, Tenn., Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Efforts to provide a federal bailout to U.S. automakers in Detroit have stirred resentment among non-union autoworkers in the U.S. South, observers say.

The Bush administration has indicated it may dip into the $700 billion financial industry bailout funds appropriated by the U.S. Congress to help Detroit's "Big 3" automakers after Republican senators, mainly from the South, killed a separate, $14 billion auto industry bailout bill.

The GOP senators, led by Bob Corker of Tennessee, demanded unionized Detroit autoworkers take pay cuts to level their wages with those earned by non-union counterparts in Southern plants owned by Japanese automakers Nissan, Honda and Toyota. That position has strong support among the workers at those plants, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

"Over here, we're taking days off without pay to keep the company going, but the unions for the Big Three aren't willing to do that," Kathy Ward, 54, who has worked 27 years at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn., told the newspaper. "Everyone has to give a little in times like these."

Union opponents "use the phrase, 'You don't want the Yankees telling you what to do,'" a Southern organizer told the Post.