Automakers, It Won’t Hurt to Share Buyback Bounty: Liam Denning

Stock buybacks are the perfect target for the United Auto Workers. The freest of free cash flow, they may as well be a billboard saying: “So many dollars, we don’t know what to do with them!” In the minds of many, they also look like giveaways to the very wealthiest who own many of the stocks being bought, and carry a whiff of financial engineering shenanigans, juicing earnings to the benefit of bosses’ bonuses.

All of which offers a reason for the Big Three to consider meeting the UAW halfway on this one.

One of the UAW’s demands in its fraught negotiations with ...