GM to offer buyouts to all hourly employees

GM to offer buyouts to all hourly employees

www.msnbc.msn.com

updated 1 hour, 23 minutes ago

NEW YORK - General Motors Corp. said Tuesday it will offer buyouts to all of its hourly employees as the troubled automaker continues to slash costs.

GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said the buyouts will mainly target GM's 22,000 retirement-eligible hourly employees, though any union employee can take the offer.

GM employees were notified of the buyouts on Tuesday. Sapienza says the offer will consist of a car voucher and a one-time cash payment. He says employees will receive more specific details on Friday, and says the offer will be less generous than previous buyouts.

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Well this looks to be the beginning of the end for the troubled automaker.

I know that the article states that it is targeting it's employees that are nearing retirement, but it's the start of things to come in Detroit.

I wish they would all just get over their ego's and "old family power" and just merge all of the "big" three together while they still can.



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(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by wolf241e


Merging them wouldn't do squat as all three companies suffer from the same malaise, the same poor leadership styles, and the same crappy business models. Zero multiplied by 3 is still zero.

GM is doing more for its workers than most companies that are laying people off. The settlement will no doubt be less than than they would make if they were allowed to keep their jobs, but it will be a great help.

The automakers have always treated their employees better than many, if not most, other companies.

I don't believe decent salaries and benefits are the reason GM is in financial trouble. It's only union busters and others who want to exploit their workers to the max who want to jump on the fair dealings of the automakers with their employees.

I don't think it's how they treated their employees that destroyed the company either...

GM, as with all the big 3, haven't evolved. They're still using out-dated principles in their engineering, and well, pretty much everywhere in their company.

For one, while Ford may have been one of the first to revolutionize the production line, they certainly haven't done their bit to keep up with what's happened to it since.
Take a tour of a Ford plant, and then a Toyota plant to see what I'm talking about. The process in Toyota plants are so incredibly fine tuned, whereas the process in Ford plants have been patched up rather than updated.

The engineering of the big three vehicles are also to blame. Vehicles coming from overseas are outperforming the larger American vehicles in areas that the consumer wants... fuel consumption.
Sure, you no longer get to hear a loud rumble as you accelerate... but that's not what the consumers care about any more.

And while the Chevy Volt may be in prototyping stages as an attempt to push forward, they spent millions on Research and Development, whereas upstart electric vehicle companies are making far more powerful and efficient electric vehicles (and conversions), starting with little more than a single mans wage.

Its the lack of forward thinking and willingness to evolve with other companies that has cost them so much.

I know the thought line of "If you find something that works, stick with it" often helps companies...
... but that thought line has an expiry date...

... and their companies have turned sour.

[edit on 3-2-2009 by johnsky]

Just paid off my two car loans (one Chrysler, one Mazda6 - which is Ford-owned, ford motor in it). So, I'm not going to be buying a new car anytime soon.

How about anyone else reading this thread? Will you guys be buying anything? Do the car companies have much future sales in this economy? Other than fleet sales - what is their 2009 sales potential?

money.cnn.com...

Chrysler down 55% over last January? That's really horrible. Similar #s for GM and Ford. yech - hate to see this happening. But like others say - the foreign car companies are pulling off the better product with better mileage.

For kicks - I looked up an old 70s model of the Datsun B-210 sub-compact. They were saying that model had 36 city/48 mpg on the hywy. In 30+ years, nothing has done much better than that. The similar-sized Chevy Chevette didn't do anything near that mileage (23/28).