G.M. does the right thing

It has been an exceptionally rough year for General Motors. The automaker was forced to spend $3 billion to compensate accident victims and recall close to 30 million vehicles. 

But as The New York Times reports, at the close of the fiscal year, the Detroit, Michigan-based company still found a way to pay bonuses -- record bonuses -- to its 48,000 unionized workers.

"Each worker will receive up to a record $9,000 in profit-sharing," according to The Times, "even though the company’s actual profits were diminished by the cost of more than 80 recalls and warranted a payment that would be about $2,400 smaller."

“I thought the recalls were going to kill us,”  George McGregor, president of the United Automobile Workers local at G.M.’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant, told The Times. “We had the big check coming. We shouldn’t have to pay for their defects.”

Read the full story here 

[Vinnie Rotondaro is NCR national correspondent. His email address is vrontodaro@ncronline.org.]


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