Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The United Auto Workers union, which agreed to cut new worker pay in half and end fixed pensions last year, is resisting calls to yield more to help advance a bailout of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC.

Democratic lawmakers are proposing $25 billion in new liquidity for automakers to help them weather the worst vehicle market since 1991, after GM said last week it may not have enough cash to keep operating.

Critics such as hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said GM is ``hamstrung'' with ``contracts that are uneconomic.'' That charge is resonating with some lawmakers, putting the Detroit- based labor group on the defensive as it joins the automakers in lobbying for U.S. assistance.

``We've made concessions and done everything we could to make the company profitable over time,'' said David Green, president of UAW Local 1714 in Lordstown, Ohio. ``Things just got worse, faster. To say they should just throw us out in the street, or `let them burn,' is ridiculous. We're like the last of the middle class in America.''

The local represents workers at a plant that stamps metal parts for GM's Chevrolet Cobalt small car. About 1,100 workers at the assembly complex, including 160 at his plant, will be laid off in January because GM is slowing production to make up for sluggish sales.

The January cuts are likely ``just the beginning'' as U.S. auto sales continue to slow, Green said.

Not Enough

That may not generate enough sympathy to win votes for a bailout among some in Congress.

``I've got a saw-mill worker in my district who's making $15 an hour,'' Representative Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican, said during a House committee hearing today, according to a transcript. ``And we're taking his money, and we're paying it to a company that's paying $75 an hour.''

The criticism comes a year after the union agreed to lower pay and end pensions for new hires at GM, Ford and Chrysler.

Under the contracts, hourly pay and benefits for new hires were cut to about $26 from about $78. The 2007 accords also call for creating a union-managed trust that will take over responsibility for retiree health care obligations starting in 2010.

Alan Reuther, the union's lobbyist in Washington, said the labor costs ``aren't out of line'' with those in U.S. factories owned by Asian and European automakers.

``We're not the problem,'' Reuther said.

`Gold-Plated Benefits'

GM said last week it may run out of money by the end of the year and won't have enough by mid-2009.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the aid she envisions for automakers would come with conditions, including restrictions on executive compensation, ``a prohibition on golden parachutes'' and ``rigorous independent oversight.''

The automakers want $25 billion in new government loans to address liquidity issues, including operating costs, plant investments and research costs, Ken Cole, GM's chief lobbyist, said in a Nov. 10 letter to Congress. Separately, the UAW wants $25 billion to cover the costs of the union-run retiree health care funds.

The UAW is being criticized ``because they were successful,'' said Gary Chaison, a labor-relations professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. ``They really did have gold-plated benefits. A lot of workers didn't come close to that.''

One example, he said, was the ``jobs banks'' that enabled UAW members to receive 95 percent of their take-home pay while laid off. The 2007 contracts put new limits on the jobs banks.

Concessionary Mode

Union officials say they have already sacrificed to try to benefit the automakers.

``We have been in a concessionary mode for some time and we're still in it, like it or not, because of the economics of the globe,'' UAW's Green said. ``We want to see America's auto industry survive for America, not just for us.''

The union's membership has shrunk as GM, Ford and Chrysler cut back on production jobs, falling 14 percent last year to 464,901, or less than a third of its 1979 peak of 1.5 million.

The union has had trouble winning over the public, Clark University's Chaison said.

``To some degree, 10 to 20 years ago, auto workers were idolized as the aristocrats of labor,'' he said. ``Now they're viewed as spoiled. They won the battle but lost the war.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Koenig in Southfield, Michigan, at wkoenig@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 12, 2008 17:17 EST