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General Motors Corporation (GM)


Self Description

October 2007: "General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world's largest automaker, has been the annual global industry sales leader for 76 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 284,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 33 countries. In 2006, 9.1 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Vauxhall. GM's OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety, security and information services."

http://www.gm.com/corporate/about/company.jsp

January 2003: "General Motors (NYSE: GM), the world's largest vehicle manufacturer, designs, builds and markets cars and trucks worldwide,...GM employs about 355,000 people around the world....Founded in 1908, GM today has manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries and its vehicles are sold in about 200 countries."

http://www.gm.com/company/corp_info/profiles/

Third-Party Descriptions

December 2012: 'General Motors found itself caught up in a viral spiral this year. One message pointed to a YouTube video claiming the automaker was becoming “China Motors” and using taxpayer bailout dollars to do it. But GM remains firmly incorporated and headquartered on U.S. soil. Its sales in China, the largest auto sales market in the world, have been growing — both before and after the bailout. GM was the largest foreign car company there in 2008, pre-bailout. And it has been expanding sales in both China and the U.S. since it was restructured in 2009.'

http://factcheck.org/2012/12/viral-spiral-2012/

October 2010: 'Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said he thought “administration officials are trying so hard to put a positive spin on program losses that they played fast and loose with the numbers.” He said it reminded him of “misleading” claims that General Motors had paid back its rescue loans with interest ahead of schedule.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/business/26tarp.html

June 2010: "WASHINGTON — First there was General Motors, whose chief executive was summarily dismissed by the White House shortly before the government became the company’s majority shareholder. Chrysler was forced into a merger. At the banks that received government bailouts, executive pay was curbed; at insurance companies seeking to jack up premiums, scathing criticism led to rollbacks."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/18assess.html

July 2009: "Cars have been increasingly encumbered by tracking devices, of late. Remote ignition disabling services have been in increasing use in auto financing, allowing jilted finance companies to disable cars whose owners miss payments, making repossession easier. But this technology could in principle be used to track, or to disable, any equipped vehicle for any reason. OnStar customers are subject to detailed tracking, and remote control of locks, ignition, and other features. 2009 model GM vehicles feature Stolen Vehicle Slowdown, which allows OnStar operators to slow down stolen vehicles in police chases, but could in principle be used to slow down or disable any equipped vehicle for any reason."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/eff-to-ca-metered-auto-insurance-is-still-a-slippery-slope.ars

July 2009: "The head of President Obama’s automotive task force warned members of Congress on Tuesday that reversing or stopping the closure of thousands of General Motors and Chrysler dealerships could threaten their turnarounds and keep the companies from repaying billions in government loans."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/business/22auto.html

June 2009: 'SINCE General Motors declared bankruptcy early this month, its common stock has traded for as much as $1.59 a share; it closed on Friday at $1.16. Those aren’t great prices, unless you consider that the company has warned investors that “even under the most optimistic of scenarios,” those shares are likely to be worthless.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/your-money/28stra.html

June 2009: "General Motors and the Obama administration have reached a deal for the carmaker to assume responsibility for product liability claims filed after it emerges from bankruptcy as a new company, even those claims involving vehicles made by the old company, according to documents filed in bankruptcy court late Friday."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/business/28gm.html

June 2009: "Under sharp questioning from a Senate panel, executives from General Motors and Chrysler defended their plans to whittle down the number of dealerships on Wednesday, calling it a painful but necessary part of creating leaner, more competitive companies."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/business/04dealers.html

June 2009: "The future of General Motors' European arm in the wake of its projected sale was muddied yesterday by concerns over both the safeguarding of British jobs and the involvement in the deal of the billionaire Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska."

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2009/gb2009061_218300.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

June 2009: "GM failed to respond to climate risks by continuing to produce high-polluting gas-guzzlers that few consumers wanted—a key factor in its downfall. What other companies might falter? And which are measuring their carbon footprint, setting pollution reduction targets and seeking new clean energy opportunities?"

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2009/tc2009063_019035.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

June 2009: "This week's [bankruptcy--Ed] filing by General Motors (GM) is a painful lesson for shareholders who failed to grasp the profound risks of the company's failed business strategy. It's a lesson all shareholders should consider in scouring their portfolios for risks."

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2009/tc2009063_019035.htm

December 2008: 'The language of the loan agreement sets specific "restructuring targets" that General Motors and Chrysler must use their "best efforts" to meet. Compensation must be made "competitive" to that of nonunion workers, and work rules must be "competitive" with those at nonunion plants. The companies also must reduce compensation to workers who have been laid off -- the jobs bank -- and at least half of the company's payments into retiree health care must be made in stock, not cash. If the companies fall short of those targets, they are required to explain why.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903856.html

December 2008: "The legislation would have provided emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, which have said they face imminent collapse without federal help. The high-stakes talks broke down over when the wages of union workers would be slashed to the same level as those paid to nonunion workers at U.S. plants of foreign automakers such as Toyota and Honda."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121101578.html

December 2008: "The prospective dealer shutdowns would be an acceleration of a trend that goes back a decade. General Motors, which had 8,150 dealerships in 2000, has pared that number to 6,400 as its share of the car market has shrunk. In the plan that Rick Wagoner, G.M.’s chief executive, presented to Congress last week to save the company, he called for reducing that number to 4,700 over the next three years."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09dealers.html

July 2008: "Because of their union contracts, G.M., Ford and Chrysler are obligated to pay workers more than half of their regular take-home wages, plus health benefits, with state unemployment benefits picking up a portion of the rest."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/business/03auto.html

May 2008: "DETROIT — General Motors workers who build the Chevrolet Malibu, one of G.M.’s most popular and important new vehicles, went on strike Monday at a plant in Kansas after they were unable to reach an agreement with the company on local work rules."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/business/06strike.html

October 2007: "A divided federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a human rights lawsuit filed against 50 major corporations that did business in South Africa under apartheid should be revived and reconsidered by the lower court that dismissed it.... The plaintiffs sued the corporations — among them Citigroup, General Electric, E. I. DuPont de Nemours, I.B.M., General Motors, Shell Oil and ExxonMobil — under the Alien Tort Claims Act..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/us/13apartheid.html

October 2007: In benefits, a new contract ratified by UAW workers this week allows General Motors to contribute to a cash-balance retirement plan for new entry-level workers, rather than providing a guaranteed pension.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1012/p01s05-usec.html

September 2007: DETROIT, Sept. 26 -- General Motors and the United Auto Workers agreed on a new four-year contract early Wednesday morning, ending a two-day nationwide strike and sending workers back to assembly lines in the afternoon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092600155.html

June 2007: You have almost certainly never heard of the Treaty of Detroit, which you may connect with the French and Indian War that ended in 1763. Guess again. The Treaty of Detroit is a long-lost label describing a series of landmark labor agreements between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three U.S. automakers. Starting with a 1948 contract at General Motors, the agreements guaranteed annual wage increases, job security and generous fringe benefits. As Detroit's present turmoil attests, the treaty is in tatters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/05/AR2007060501765.html

October 2005: When I caught up with Robert S. Miller, the chief executive of Delphi Corporation, last summer, he was still pitching the fantasy that his company, a huge auto-parts maker, would be able to cut a deal with its workers and avoid filing for bankruptcy protection. But he acknowledged that Delphi faced one perhaps insuperable hurdle - not the current conditions in the auto business so much as the legacy of the pension promises that Delphi committed to many decades ago, when it was part of General Motors. This was the same fear that had obsessed Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the storied president of G.M., who warned way back in the 1940's that pensions and like benefits would be 'extravagant beyond reason.' But under pressure from the United Auto Workers union, he granted them. And as future auto executives would discover, pension obligations are - outside of bankruptcy, anyway - virtually impossible to unload. Unlike wages or health benefits, pension benefits cannot be cut. Unlike other contracts, which might be renegotiated as business conditions change, pension commitments are forever. And given the exigencies of the labor market, they tend to be steadily improved upon, at least when times are good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/magazine/30pensions.html

January 2005: General Motors has since reclaimed and crushed nearly all its EV-1 cars, which remain the most energy-efficient cars ever produced by an American manufacturer. Honda has reclaimed several hundred of its bullet-shaped EV-Plus cars and Toyota still has several hundred electric RAV4 S.U.V.'s in the hands of lessees and private owners. Toyota says it will continue to lease the fleet cars so long as they don't require major maintenance and has offered the purchase options to its private lessees. Fleet RAV4 EV’s that have been reclaimed have largely been dismantled.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/automobiles/23ford.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) Chevrolet Organization Oct 29, 2006
Status/Name Change to Delphi Corporation Organization Nov 1, 2005
Status/Name Change from Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS) Organization Feb 10, 2006
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) General Motors Acceptance Corporation/GMAC Financial Services Organization Nov 12, 2004
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) Hughes Aircraft Organization Mar 4, 2008
Status/Name Change from Hughes Electronics Corporation Organization May 3, 2005
Owned by (partial or full, past or present) Kirk Kerkorian Person Jan 11, 2007
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) Sandra Moore Person Aug 8, 2004
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. Person Nov 21, 2007
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) John F. Smith Jr. Person Jun 9, 2005
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Roger Smith Person Dec 1, 2012
Director/Trustee/Overseer (past or present) Rev. Leon H. Sullivan Person Sep 23, 2005
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) G. Richard "Rick" Wagoner Person Jun 14, 2006
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Charles Wilson Person Sep 23, 2005

Articles and Resources

62 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Dec 27, 2012 Viral Spiral 2012: The constant battle against crackpot claims, paranoid conspiracy theories and malicious lies.

QUOTE: old viral emails, unfortunately, never die — and new ones spread like a highly contagious disease. These overwhelmingly anonymous messages are, by and large, bogus. Many not only twist the facts but also peddle pure fabrications, urging recipients to forward these “shocking” revelations to all their friends. And despite all good common sense, people do pass along these malicious attempts to deceive, often in the same amount of time it would take to check their tenuous hold on veracity.

 FactCheck.org
Oct 26, 2010 Treasury Hid A.I.G. Loss, Report Says

QUOTE: The United States Treasury concealed $40 billion in likely taxpayer losses on the bailout of the American International Group earlier this month, when it abandoned its usual method for valuing investments...

 New York Times
Jun 17, 2010 Obama’s Twist of BP’s Arm Stirs Debate on Frequent Tactic

QUOTE: President Obama’s successful move to force BP to establish a $20 billion compensation fund that the company will have no voice in allocating — just a down payment, the president insisted — may have been the most vivid example of what he recently called his determination to step in and do “what individuals couldn’t do and corporations wouldn’t do.” With that display of raw arm-twisting, Mr. Obama reinvigorated a debate about the renewed reach of government power, or, alternatively, the power of government overreach.

 New York Times
Jul 21, 2009 Obama Auto Adviser Tells Lawmakers Not to Undo Dealer Closings

QUOTE: The official, Ron Bloom, also said the government no longer needed to guarantee the warranties on G.M. and Chrysler vehicles, now that the companies had come out of bankruptcy protection....Reopening dealerships would raise “enormous legal concerns, to say nothing of the substantial financial burden it would place on the companies,” he continued. “Political intervention could also jeopardize taxpayer returns by making it far more difficult for the companies to access private capital markets where there is ongoing uncertainty about the rules of the game.”

 New York Times
Jul 17, 2009 Pay-as-you-drive insurance, privacy, and government mandates

QUOTE: California's new pay-as-you-drive plan has all kinds of consumer and environmental benefits, but privacy advocates like the EFF are concerned that drivers will end up forced into allowing Orwellian tracking of location and driving styles. What kind of balance should be struck between privacy and efficiency?

 Ars Technica
Jun 27, 2009 G.M. to Maintain Legal Liability for Claims

QUOTE: Courts typically allow companies under bankruptcy protection to leave claims behind in bankruptcy and emerge with a clean slate, a precedent G.M. and the government are relying upon.

 New York Times
Jun 27, 2009 Strategies: Why Investors Bet on Bankrupt Companies

QUOTE: One possible answer is that bankruptcy courts don’t always follow the absolute priority ranking....Every company, of course, has a predetermined pecking order that specifies which creditors will be paid before others in a bankruptcy proceeding. Senior creditors, like banks, are typically at the top of the list; bondholders are lower on the ranking, and holders of preferred stock lower still.

 New York Times
Jun 03, 2009 Companies: Come Clean on Climate Change

QUOTE: 100 global companies with the most at stake in preparing for a low carbon future are providing scant information to investors on their risks and opportunities from climate change....Investors are pushing for better corporate disclosure on other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that can have an impact on a company's bottom line.

 BusinessWeek
Jun 03, 2009 G.M. and Chrysler Defend Dealer Closings to Senate Panel

QUOTE: Under sharp questioning from a Senate panel, executives from General Motors and Chrysler defended their plans to whittle down the number of dealerships on Wednesday, calling it a painful but necessary part of creating leaner, more competitive companies....dealerships that sold a smaller number of vehicles weighed down their companies. A more streamlined corps of dealers was vital for survival.

 New York Times
Jun 01, 2009 Concerns in Britain over Opel Rescue

QUOTE: The future of General Motors' European arm was muddied yesterday by concerns over the safeguarding of British jobs and the involvement in the deal of the billionaire Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska....he was one of the first Russian entrepreneurs bailed out by the Kremlin.

 BusinessWeek
Dec 20, 2008 Some Say UAW's Sacrifices Look More Like Surrender

QUOTE: But with the announcement of the federal loan deal yesterday, the union found itself being forced into concessions that some described as tantamount to surrender....But with the announcement of the federal loan deal yesterday, the union found itself being forced into concessions that some described as tantamount to surrender....

 Washington Post
Dec 12, 2008 Auto Bailout Talks Collapse as Senate Deadlocks Over Wages: Without a Deal, Carmakers Face Bankruptcy Threat

QUOTE: The legislation would have provided emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, which have said they face imminent collapse without federal help. The high-stakes talks broke down over when the wages of union workers would be slashed to the same level as those paid to nonunion workers at U.S. plants of foreign automakers...

 Washington Post
Dec 09, 2008 Car Dealers Brace for Closings, or for a Fight, as Detroit Seeks Help

QUOTE: It is possible fights could erupt between some dealers and the auto companies. Virtually every state has stringent laws that make it difficult for manufacturers to alter dealer contracts, even when they abandon brands, as General Motors is talking about doing. These laws have been a big impediment to auto companies in the past as they sought to cut their dealer networks.

 New York Times
Nov 26, 2008 Dumb And Dumber--And Dumbest

QUOTE: the inexplicably callous, clueless and trust-destructing behavior we have recently seen from so many big businesses that have been central players in this unprecedented economic meltdown.

 Forbes
Nov 20, 2008 Hurt by Losses, Pension Funds Criticize Rules

QUOTE: Stung by outsize investment losses, some of the nation’s biggest companies are pushing Congress to roll back rules requiring them to put more money into their pension funds, just two years after President Bush signed a law meant to strengthen the pension system....With cash now in short supply for companies, they are asking Congress to excuse them from having to replenish the required amounts.

 New York Times
Jul 03, 2008 The Struggles of Detroit Ensnare Its Workers

QUOTE: Their pickups and sport utility vehicles are not selling, and now General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler have to pay thousands of auto workers not to make them. With more than 15 of their assembly plants across the country set to be idled or slowed because of shift cutbacks, the Detroit automakers will temporarily lay off upward of 25,000 auto workers this summer and fall. Because of their union contracts, G.M., Ford and Chrysler are obligated to pay workers more than half of their regular take-home wages, plus health benefits, with state unemployment benefits picking up a portion of the rest.

 New York Times
May 29, 2008 In Stock Plan, Employees See Stacked Deck

QUOTE: Now that many U.S. Sugar workers are reaching retirement age, though, the company has been cashing them out of the retirement plan at a much lower price than they could have received. Unknown to them, an outside investor was offering to buy the company — and their shares — for far more. Longtime employees say they have lost out on tens of thousands of dollars each and millions of dollars as a group, while insiders of the company came out ahead.

 New York Times
May 28, 2008 Strike Settled, American Axle Details Layoff Plans

QUOTE: The parts supplier said Wednesday that it expected to save about $300 million a year under its new contract with the United Automobile Workers union, largely by eliminating about 2,000 of the 3,650 jobs now held by U.A.W. members in Michigan and New York, plus an unspecified number of salaried positions.

 New York Times
May 23, 2008 Auto Parts Workers Nearing a Contract

QUOTE: Under the deal, about 3,650 workers at auto parts plants in New York and Michigan, who had been on strike for 87 days, will earn an average of $10 an hour less. The workers can choose either to take a buyout of up to $140,000 and leave, or to stay and receive three annual “buydown” payments totaling as much as $105,000 aimed at helping them adjust to the lower wages. Those who are eligible will also be offered the possibility of early retirement which includes a $55,000 payment.For many, the decision was easy. “Give me my $140,000 and let me go,” said Walter Dowery, 36, who has been with the company since its founding in 1994.

 New York Times
May 13, 2008 Supreme Court Won’t Hear Apartheid Lawsuit

QUOTE: [Supreme Court] announced that, because of some 21st-century conflicts of interest, it was unable to consider a lawsuit based on an 18th-century law and involving the bygone 20th-century apartheid era in South Africa.

 New York Times

62 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]