Workers will be offered buyouts

February 4, 2009 at 12:03a.m.

Employees will receive buyout details Friday.

STAFF/WIRE REPORT

General Motors Corp. will offer buyouts to all of its hourly employees, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday, 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.

News of the buyouts first broke Monday. A union official told The Associated Press then that GM would offer $20,000 in cash and a $25,000 car voucher for workers who retire early and those who simply leave the company. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because workers were not yet notified of the packages.

Sapienza confirmed that the offer will consist of a car voucher and a one-time cash payment, though declined to offer more details, saying that employees will be informed of the specifics of the offer Friday. However, he said the latest offer would be less generous than previous buyouts.

GM’s operations in Ohio include a factory in Lordstown that produces the Cobalt and Pontiac G5 fuel-efficient cars.

More than 2,100 workers from Lordstown’s assembly and fabricating plants left with buyout offers in 2006 and 2008. Those offers were $35,000 for workers eligible for full retirement benefits and up to $140,000 to those who weren’t.

GM last year added 1,400 workers to Lordstown, including new hires and transfers from other GM plants and Delphi Corp.

With the recent slump in auto sales, however, GM is in the process of laying off 2,800 of its 4,200 hourly workers. The assembly plant is being trimmed to one shift, instead of three, and production cutbacks are coming at the fabricating plant.

Sapienza said employees will have until March 24 to decide whether to accept a buyout. Employees who accept the buyout will leave the company by April 1.

The buyouts are the latest round of cost-cutting measures by GM, which is racing to piece together a plan for returning to viability by Feb. 17.