A Bitter End

Union workers at Chrysler's Kenosha, Wis., plant agreed to concessions three years ago to encourage the company to build a new fuel-efficient engine there. Last week, they agreed to still more concessions, including a six-year wage freeze. We'd say they've done their part to keep Chrysler afloat.

And so have you. Taxpayers have lent billions of dollars to the bankrupt company, dollars that aren't likely to be repaid.

So it's not hard to understand why Chrysler workers in Kenosha feel double-crossed doubly over the news that the company plans to close its Kenosha plant anyway and move the work to plants in Michigan and Mexico.

We haven't favored the bailout of the automakers and believe that the initial government-backed loans last December were a waste of money. Chrysler has been headed to bankruptcy court for months, and that initial inoculation of federal assistance did little to forestall it. General Motors probably won't be far behind. But if the government must do a bailout, why shouldn't it at least come with certain strings? In this case, an obvious one is that American workers should get first dibs on the work.

Wisconsin Politicians from Sens.

Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, both Democrats, to Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican, have expressed outrage and have vowed to fight to keep the plant open.

There is, of course, a chance that the plant will be sold to another company and jobs will remain there. Even if it does close as planned in the fall of 2010, Kenosha will survive. At one time the auto industry accounted for 43 percent of the city's employment. Now, it's more like 2 percent. Kenosha has diversified its economy and effectively grafted itself onto northern Illinois.

But such a shutdown still would be a drag on the economy. Trouble at the automakers ripples through southeastern Wisconsin's economy as suppliers retrench. Strattec Security Corp. of Milwaukee, which makes locks and other automotive parts, took steps to shore up its business this week after estimating that it might never get paid for $500,000 of parts shipped to Chrysler.

Chrysler's pleading for a bailout only to ship jobs overseas has the bitter taste of betrayal. The Obama administration should put the American workers who have sacrificed the most first in line for the work it is supposedly trying to preserve.

REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL.

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