BusinessWeek: Auto Workers Give Up Notorious Featherbed

(Slightly off-topic, but here's yet another reason why big companies should be refused bailouts and pushed towards bankruptcy and enforced restructuring instead.)
"The union is suspending its most ridiculed perk, called the JOBS bank. That program pays auto workers 85% of their pay while furloughed. Some workers reported for years to meeting rooms where they would sit and wait for an assignment or be sent to clean public parks. All the while, they would get paid most of their wages. The JOBS bank was costly in more ways than one. By making labor a fixed cost, it altered their manufacturing strategy. For most of the past 10 years, the car companies preferred to discount models with big rebates rather than cut production, because they had to pay workers no matter what."