US: General Motors to offer early retirement to two-thirds of its 72,000 hourly workers
Friday, January 18, 2008, AutomotiveWorld.com
Rick Wagoner, GM's chief executive, states that offers are being made to 46,000 employees, with 5,000 workers having already received offers so far this month. This new phase of buy-outs will commence from February.
Wagoner says that as the US new vehicle market slows, its assembly, powertrain and stamping plants throughout the country may have to lose shifts at least.
"We're delivering on the turnaround plan we established in 2005, and have exceeded expectations on virtually all counts," Wagoner claims. "At the same time, it's clear that we'll face some challenging headwinds in 2008."
According to The Detroit News, the president of the United Auto Workers, Ron Gettelfinger, said the union rejects the idea of further plant closures.
"We've gotten [sic] the strongest plant commitments we ever had and we intend to enforce those," he said.
Wagoner states that GM's global target is to have all its plants in high-cost countries -the US is one, according to him - operating at 100% of their capacity.
The newspaper says GM's North American factories ran at an average 85% of their capacity in 2007, down from 87% in 2006, citing data from the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.
Published on Friday, January 18, 2008
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