Republican presidential candidates seem to have locked in the 2009 U.S. automotive industry bailout by the federal government as a means to raise votes in the primaries.

Yet the Democrats aren’t the only ones who dismiss the Republicans’ arguments; United Auto Workers president Bob King recently accused Mitt Romney of “misleading voters” on the issue of the bailout.

“Romney is trying to rewrite history and attack President Obama and the UAW for successfully saving the auto industry,” King said in a statement.

The UAW said that it has made many concessions since 2005 in matters such as pay rises, overtime payments and holidays. It cited a 2010 report by the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research, which showed that those concessions saved 1.4 million jobs and US$96 billion in personal income across the country.

In response to Romney’s comments that the government shouldn’t have interfered but let GM and Chrysler handle their bankruptcy themselves, King said that the federal loans helped the auto industry “survive the darkest hour of its history”.

“Americans deserve to know the truth. The emergency loans worked,” said King. “GM is once again the world’s top carmaker, its 2011 profit was its largest ever. The auto industry added 200,000 jobs in the last two and a half years and 2011 was the strongest year of job growth since 1994. Demand for their cars is going up, so GM, Ford and Chrysler are starting to run three production shifts a day at many plants. Added shifts and new facilities mean jobs for thousands more workers in Michigan, Ohio and other places across the country,” he added.

According to Autonews, a Romney spokeswoman commented that it was expected the UAW would “oppose Romney’s proposals to help turn around the automotive industry”.

You can watch the UAW video statement right after the jump.

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