600 GM workers change mind on buyouts, cling to jobs instead

Jeremy Korzeniewski — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:29:00 EST

Filed under: Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, GM

In these uncertain economic times, a job working for an automaker with a possible bankruptcy looming in the distance may be better than no job at all. This fact must be readily apparent to the 600 or so General Motors workers who have changed their mind and turned down the automaker's latest round of buyout offers, in this case worth $20,000 in cash plus a $25,000 voucher to buy a brand new vehicle from The General. Previous buyouts had offered as much as $140,000 to leave, depending on the individual worker's total years of service.

Even with the 600 workers who chose to stay, GM did get over 7,000 employees to accept the buyout package. That brings the total to more than 60,600 total buyouts since 2006. If and when these workers are replaced, GM's latest contracts with the UAW allows it to hire new workers with a starting base pay of $14 per hour, which is about half what current auto workers earn.

[Source: The Detroit News, Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty]

600 GM workers change mind on buyouts, cling to jobs instead originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GM announces 2007 loss and new buyouts for entire union workforce

John Neff — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:59:00 EST

Filed under: Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, GM, Earnings/Financials, UAW/Unions

Let's get the hard numbers out of the way. Today General Motors revealed that excluding special items, it posted a net loss of $23 million in 2007. Add in some funky deferred tax asset charge, and the automaker's net loss last year rises to $38.3 billion. Aside from that, we're interested in how GM fared in the business of selling cars and trucks around the world last year. In 2007, the automaker earned $553 million before taxes selling vehicles globally, compared to losing $339 million in 2006. Worldwide vehicles sales increased 3% to 9.4 million vehicles last year, but the North American market was no help, losing $1.5 billion before taxes.

Numbers aside, GM also had some big news today in the form of new buyouts for its entire union workforce that's some 74,000 strong. Similar to the recent round of new buyouts offered by Ford and Chrysler to their union workers, the new arrangement is more generous to workers than what was offered back in 2006. GM hasn't said how many workers it will let go this time, but because of its new contract with the UAW, the automaker will be allowed to replace some of those workers with new hires at a reduced compensation rate of around $14/hour.

Follow the jump for nitty gritty details on both GM's posted loss for 2007 and the new UAW buyouts.

[Source: GM]

Continue reading GM announces 2007 loss and new buyouts for entire union workforce

GM announces 2007 loss and new buyouts for entire union workforce originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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