wel·fare (wlfâr) n.
1. a. Health, happiness, and good fortune; well-being. b. Prosperity.
2. Welfare work.
3. a. Financial or other aid provided, especially by the government, to people in need. b. Corporate welfare.

#3 appears to be what happened. Both parties were apparently concerned (for reasons obviously political)that Chrysler executives and UAW workers qualified as "people in need," because there was no good business reason to dump money into a company which couldn't sell its product, and none of the money made the product more marketable.