Jobs Bank On Block

Since the 1980s, the U.S. auto industry's "jobs bank" has paid thousands of laid-off workers for staying home or sitting in a union hall. The practice began as a way to entice the United Auto Workers to accept robots on the assembly line. Now it appears headed for the scrap heap. Desperate automakers seeking a $34 billion bailout renewed their pleas to lawmakers yesterday on Capitol Hill. On Wednesday, the UAW offered concessions that included ending the jobs bank program,which has become a much-maligned symbol of Detroit's fiscal imprudence. But auto experts agree that the program's cost is probably onlya drop in the bucket for the automakers, and its elimination islargely cosmetic.