35,000 take GM buyout, to retire, Honda chooses IN for 6th assembly plant Options

[dauss]

35,000 take GM buyout, to retire

General Motors persuaded about 35,000 of its union workers in the U.S. to retire or leave under a cost-cutting program aimed at helping return the company to profit.

The buyouts and retirements consist of 33,800 United Auto Workers and about 1,200 workers at a separate union who have already accepted buyouts, GM said Monday.

Former GM unit Delphi said 12,600 workers took similar retirement offers. It didn't say how many accepted buyouts.

The departures mean GM will meet it goal of cutting 30,000 jobs by Jan. 1, two years ahead of schedule, and add an additional $1 billion in savings, to $8 billion, by year-end. The company expects the attrition program to cost $3.8 billion.

Chief Executive Rick Wagoner is trying to restore GM to profit after a 2005 loss of $10.6 billion.

"We're coming very rapidly on the road back," Wagoner said at a news conference in Detroit to announce the results.

GM is scaling back in North America after Asian rivals such as Toyota captured a record share of the U.S. market and sent GM's share to an 80-year low. Wagoner's plans to close 12 North American facilities will cut production by about 1 million units, on top of another reduction of 1 million units from 2002 to 2005.

The buyouts and retirements are an attempt to speed the departure of workers GM needs to shed to close plants through 2008. Factories in Oklahoma City and Lansing, Mich., have already closed.

"Broadly speaking, the more people that take this, the better," Standard & Poor's analyst Robert Schulz said before the announcement. "This is the main part of the cost reductions they're undertaking."

Workers who accepted the buyout offer by last week's deadline have until Friday to change their minds, so the final numbers may change slightly. Most of the employees who accept the offers will be gone by year's end.

If so many employees take buyouts that GM can't run all of its plants, it can hire temporary workers under a March 22 agreement with the UAW.

The temporary employees, who will be union members, are paid $18 to $19 an hour, GM spokesman Tom Wickham said. GM's union assembly wages are about $27 an hour.

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While doing this GM is going to expand jobs in Asia and India.


Honda chooses Indiana for sixth assembly plant

Honda Motor Co. said Wednesday it will build a new assembly plant in Indiana, its sixth in North America.

The $ 550 million plant, with an annual capacity of 200,000 vehicles, will be built near the town of Greensburg. Production is expected to begin in the fall of 2008 and the plant will employ 2,000 workers, the company said in a press release.

Honda plans to build "fuel-efficient 4-cylinder vehicles" at the plant to take advantage of the growing popularity of cars with smaller engines.

When the new plant is complete, Honda's production capacity in North America will total 1.6 million vehicles, which is nearly equal to the 1.68 million cars it sold in North America last year.

"Honda's success in America has been based on our strong commitment to our customers," American Honda Motor Co. President Koichi Kondo said in a press release.

Kondo said Indiana's Midwest location offers ideal access to the automaker's network of parts suppliers and customers across the U.S., according to the release.

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[GhostofTHECHICKE...]

Dont worry, soon oil prices will be so high that the benifit of shipping here from cheap labor countries will be out weighed by the cost of get the supplies here.


But then again, we wont be needed more cars then.....