GM CEO Akerson sending a kiss - and more than $4,000 in cash - to hourly workers.
General Motors CEO Dan Akerson has a big Valentine’s Day card coming in the mail for 45,000 workers.
Though they’ll still have to wait a bit for delivery, they can anticipate a profit-sharing bonus of at least $4,000 apiece, the executive announced today. That’s more than double the previous record $1,775 profit-sharing payment workers received from GM – and that was back in 1999.
But the maker’s bonus still falls short of the $5,000 Ford Motor Co.’s hourly workers will be getting. Ford decided to pay out significantly more than it was required to, in fact, under its agreement with the United Auto Workers Union.
That reflects concerns Detroit automakers have about how workers will respond to the domestic industry’s fast-improvement health. UAW members granted billions of dollars in concessions, first as part of their 2007 contracts with the U.S. Big Three, and then again to help the makers hobble through the economic downturn that saw auto sales plunge to their lowest levels in decades.
Activists within the UAW are pressing for givebacks, though new union president Bob King has made it clear he recognizes workers have a vested interest in keeping the Big Three competitive and healthy.
One way to keep both sides happy, analysts suggest, is by tying worker pay more closely to corporate profits. Ford’s big bonus reflects its $6.6 billion in earnings last year.
GM has generally granted some of the lowest bonuses to its hourly workers, in some years as little as $50. And its 1999 record payout was still dwarfed by an $8,000 payment by Ford, that year, and $8,100 from Chrysler.
This year, unlike Ford, the world’s second-largest carmaker will strictly meet the terms of its union contract when it comes to the profit-sharing bonus.
GM is also planning to pay bonuses to 28,000 hourly workers. (For more, Click Here.) Those payouts could total as much as 23% of base pay.
Significantly, GM will begin tying bonuses to product quality in 2012.
With the bonus’s being paid to the GM workforce, does this mean that the American taxpayers have been paid ALL of the bailout money back to them?
So, bonuses for the people who helped run them into bankruptcy in the first place. Isn’t that just ducky?
First of all is was NOT the hard working UAW employees that ran GM into the ground, it was it’s poor management and THEIR ridiculous big bonuses. The UAW has given up all benefits, so GM no longer can blame benefit payouts for it’s money problems. How about all state and government workers give up all their health and retirement benefits and take half pay to help out our country’s deficit!
Second the bailout money GM recieved was a LOAN, with mega intrest to be paid and stings attached, to keep them from going under. GM was not given a FREE hand-out from the tax payers to keep it’s doors open. Remember it creates 7 addtional American jobs for every 1 American autoworker employeed
Japanese automakers have been working hard to bring down the BIG 3 for years and once they do, The Honda or Toyota YOU drive will triple in price and they will be doing much more than flying through plate glass windows with no breaks killing innocent Americans.
AND YES THEY DID PAY THE LOAN FROM THE GOVERNMENT BACK IN FULL, WITH INTEREST, AHEAD OF TIME.
cclade1961……..Wrong again! GM still has NOT paid back in full to the taxpayers the money, whatver you want to call it. AND…….how about the hosing the bondholders took. Any ideas how they feel?