ALL THE PUBLICITY concerning the "bailouts" for General Motors and Chrysler has tended to divert attention from the fact that almost all of the world's auto manufacturers are suffering.

In fact, the lone exception may be India's Tata Motors, which recently unveiled its little Nano, the strippeddown four-seat car that it's planning to sell for about $2,500 Canadian dollars.

At a time when, despite all the recent price cuts, the cheapest North American car costs about four times as much, the popularity of the Nano seems assured, and a big question is whether we'll ever see a North American version of the 'cheapie'.

In this part of the world, the strikingly different situations at the Honda Canada plant in Alliston and the Chrysler Canada plant in Brampton still have a common factor, in a scaling down of production aimed at keeping pace with a sharply lower level of sales.

At Alliston, where Honda has clearly been laying off employees despite earlier assurances that loss of a third shift at its main plant would be accomplished by a form of job-sharing, there is at least no talk of a plant closing and sales of the popular Civic are still nearly 80 per cent of the level a year ago.

But at Brampton, the workers have no assurance that any of Chrysler's Canadian operations will survive the economic downturn, Chrysler president Tom Lasorda having warned that it may close all its Canadian operations absent agreements with its workers, creditors and suppliers that trigger multi-billion-dollar bailouts.

The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and Chrysler Canada have suspended official negotiations while the cashstrapped automaker focuses its efforts on working out a critical alliance with Italian automaker Fiat.

CAW president Ken Lewenza said last week he believes Chrysler is focusing on the Fiat discussions because labour talks are "secondary" to the partnership, which many say is essential to Chrysler's survival.

"It's clear that if the Fiat merger doesn't come together then all the rest, quite frankly, is secondary," Lewenza told the National Post, confirming that face-to-face negotiations have been suspended.

The Canadian and U.S. federal governments have told both Chrysler and General Motors that they hadn't yet met the requirements for long-term bailout loans. GM was given 60 days to come up with a new plan, while Chrysler was given just 30 days to cement the Fiat alliance. Our federal and Ontario governments also provided Chrysler with $250 million last week so the firm could make payroll commitments, yet production has been stalled because of a dispute with a key parts supplier in Wallaceburg which is itself facing financial peril.

A partnership with Fiat is seen as giving Chrysler access to smaller car technology that the firm currently lacks, and many industry analysts say Chrysler will be forced into bankruptcy protection if it can't complete the deal by the end of this month.

Clearly, much of the problem facing GM, Ford and Chrysler stems from the same problem: too much concentration on building the most popular vehicles of the day, seemingly oblivious of the fact that something as simple as skyrocketing fuel prices can change buying habits overnight.

Bust as usually is the case, locating the problem area and finding the best means of correcting it pose vastly different challenges.

As we see it, commitments by GM and Chrysler to produce more small, fuel-efficient vehicles and/or speed the introduction of more hybrids and plugin electrics won't guarantee the firms' future viability, without which government bailouts will not be available.

Although many reasons lie behind the sharp decline in vehicle sales everywhere in North America, and particularly in the U.S. and Western Canada, one that has had little public attention is the fact that the tough battle for market share has been accompanied by huge improvements in vehicle quality. Long gone are the days when car owners faced engine overhauls once the vehicle had gone 50,000 miles and most cars were junked after five years' operation.

Two things we see as steps in the right direction would be job-sharing aimed at reducing layoffs and government incentives aimed at achieving more alliances between North American and foreign automakers.

For its part, the CAW could suggest that GM, Ford and Chrysler adopt fourday, 32-hour work weeks as a temporary standard, so that all the workers would get 80 per cent of their current wages and thousands more keep their jobs.

As for alliances, one could easily imagine the positive impact from GM and Hyundai agreeing that each would start assembling at least one of the other's cars at their own plants.

GM would see its sales soar in South Korea, while production of Hyundai vehicles at GM plants that are already shut down or scheduled to close would mean thousands fewer unemployed autoworkers.

As we see it, stakeholders' sharing in pains today would eventually lead to sharing in gains.