David Sirota writes on TruthDig: 

“United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard likes to say that Washington policymakers “treat the people who take a shower after work much differently than they treat the people who shower before they go to work.” In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this week was that doctrine made so clear.”

“…Last month, the same government that says it “cannot just abrogate” executives’ bonus contracts used its leverage to cancel unions’ wage contracts. As The Wall Street Journal reported, federal loans to GM and Chrysler were made contingent on those manufacturers shredding their existing labor pacts and “extract[ing] financial concessions from workers.”

While this issue may be changing – see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/us/politics/22regulate.html?hp – 

The fact is that those blue collar workers who ‘shower after work’  are treated differently than white collar workers who ‘shower before work’ . 

also: “Congressional Republicans have long supported the laws letting bankruptcy courts annul mortgage contracts for vacation homes. Those statutes help the shower-before-work clique at least retain their beachside villas, no matter how many of their speculative Ponzi schemes go bad. But for those who shower after work, it’s Adams-esque bromides against “absolving borrowers of their personal responsibility,” as the GOP announced it will oppose legislation permitting bankruptcy judges to revise mortgage contracts for primary residences.”

In general, talk of voiding labor union contracts raises little public furor, which cannot be said of allowing bankrupt financial institutions to pay large bonuses to those who made questionable decisions…

see: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090319_a_government_of_men_not_laws/