GM warns bid to restructure may fail

[rickaren]

GM warns bid to restructure may fail

Posted Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 11:30 am in Employee News

General Motors Corp.’s efforts to restructure the company outside of bankruptcy showed signs of strain Tuesday, the Detroit Free Press reported.

The company warned in a Tuesday regulatory filing that it does not expect to have key deals with the UAW and U.S. Treasury completed before next Tuesday, the paper said. That was previously promised as part of the company’s complicated effort to convert bondholders’ debt for an ownership stake in a reconstituted GM, the Free Press reported.

Earlier in the week, GM and the UAW had appeared close to a deal on changes to the labor contract that would mean more than $1 billion in savings for GM, the Free Press was told. However, issues surrounding the retiree health care trust still needed to be completed, the story said.

But the UAW has been increasingly critical of plans by GM to close 16 U.S. manufacturing facilities while planning to increase imports from China, Japan, Mexico and South Korea, the paper said. That is despite GM’s argument that the proportion of vehicles it plans to build in U.S. facilities versus non-U.S. facilities will not change, the story said. (Detroit Free Press)