In his first interview since Detroit’s auto makers got $17.4 billion in emergency Federal loans, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said Monday that the auto workers have been unfairly singled out by the government.

“This (deal) is putting an undue tax on the workers themselves,” Gettelfinger said in an interview with FOX Business.

This comes after the UAW said Friday it was against the terms set by the White House for the $17.4 billion in loans for General Motors (GM) and Chrysler. The UAW said it would work to renegotiate better terms once President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated in January

Gettelfinger said the White House was asking for “unrealistic” conditions out of labor regarding work rules and employee compensation.

“We are not in this situation because of the labor contract or the auto makers themselves,” he said. “We’re here because of the economic environment.”

The work rules specified by the White House included specifications that the auto makers need to reach “competitive” pay with their foreign competitors by 2010. Right now, Detroit’s auto makers pay around $70 an hour when factoring legacy costs such as pensions and health care, compared to the average hourly wage of a foreign manufacturer of around $30 an hour.

“We were not part of any of the discussions about what we were willing or not willing to do,” he said.

Instead of singling out labor, Gettelfinger said, all major players in the industry should be asked to make sacrifices including bond holders, creditors, suppliers, vendors and the auto makers.

“We’re willing to (sacrifice) more, but we want to see what other people are going to do before we have to continue to draw that last drop of blood out of 10% of the cost of a vehicle,” he said.