The financial woes of Ford Motor Company and General Motors have garnered a lot of press lately. In many industries, when a company is bleeding that much cash, one of the solutions is to simply slash jobs. Some higher-level white collar workers might get a severance package, but other released employees are left to try to make ends meet with unemployment insurance while looking for a new job.

But the Big Three automakers can’t do that. Because of their contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW), an employee cannot be fired without sufficient good cause, usually some action that would be a crime anyway, such as theft or substance abuse while on the job. If employees are laid off, the company supplements their unemployment benefits with enough cash to ensure that they receive 95% of their previous take-home pay. Also, the employees might be eligible to put their names on a “jobs bank” type of list, which means that they get full salary and benefits indefinitely until new jobs open up at another plant.

The UAW does allow for employee buyouts, however. Ford’s recent round of staff reduction offered employees eight different buyout options, including one for younger workers (who aren’t close enough to retirement age) that gives them 50% of their salary for four years while simultaneously offering $15,000 towards four-year college tuition. So even though the numbers bandied about in the press lately sound excessive ($140,000 per employee for 75,000 workers), paying them to leave will actually save the company money in the long run.