The guidelines for selecting employees to layoff were based on how much money could be saved and did NOT consider the valued skill set or past performance of the employee. Evidence of this was that Managers were never consulted on the relative value of any of his/her employees and historical CAPs were not considered. Even employees actively working on autonomous and EV that had updated skills for Electric Vehicle and Autonomous were walked out!! This translated into targeting HIGH VALUE targets that worked at GM for 20 years or more that tended to have higher salaries and were close to locking in being paid their full age 65 pensions at age 62 with either 30 years of service or with the required number of points from years of credited service plus age. The amount of money saved from just a single employee could save GM as much as ~$240,000 in future pension payments and that doesn't even consider salary saving estimates of up to $50,000 annually by replacing the laid off person if truly needed with a new college graduate. GM was sneaky in how they did this, often times laying off entire functional areas, including some younger employees, to cover up age discrimination if they had only laid off the HIGH VALUE targets. There were exceptions to this rule. Executive Directors had the power to save anyone that they personally liked from being laid off without any need to justify, as long as they included some HIGH VALUE targets in the layoff list. It personally disgusts me that I once worked for such a deceitful company. We thought we were over with that era of GM from lessons learned from the Ignition Lawsuits but Mary has led us back into the world of deceit and cover-ups.
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Good post - just seeing this...
I know three directors and they all have similar experiences. It’s all about getting rid of people and the older and better paid you are the more likely you are to be targeted. There were no evaluations done in terms of critical skills past performance or anything else. Once again it just shows that the bulk of the workforce is now just considered cogs of equal value equal talent from the standpoint of the most senior management. Barra was trained well by the vultures running GM after the bankruptcy. People and culture are not important. Profit and personal bonuses are.
Get ready for the new corporate slogan of “doing less with less.”
Translated for those who remain it means you will be “doing more for less.”
Of course there’s no rationalization of work load or spawning off or simplifying unneeded processes.
The company keeps shrinking and the corporate officer bonus pool always comes through largely intact.
I doubt a director at GM would care enough about the company to defend it. I also doubt that they would expose the crony system that gives them their power.
There were a lot of reasons people got let go. Most of them reason that wouldn't be acceptable if GM actually practiced what it advertises: empathy, accountability, morality, etc. The take away is that GM isn't a reliable employer, the company's culture is toxic, and bad behavior is not only tolerated but used as a means for success.
"Electric Vehicle and Autonomous [employees] were walked out"...and what's really annoying is when they try to use the shift to electric cars as an excuse for layoffs.
I've seen them hire hire big for positions that they recently laid people off from. Everybody knows a lot of people were let go because petty coworkers got their way.
I am a director and this post was made up.
Good post
Poor fools. I have taken about 60 (and counting) loyal customers who are not family members with me. 30+ years experience. I will continue to move people toward other car companies.
The OP's statements relative to salaried pension are correct, disregard the reply rebuttals. For employees hired before specific dates, GM only pays the early retirement supplement when younger than age 62, provides retiree health insurance coverage pre age 65, and medicare supplement payments age 65 and older when meeting retirement criteria. To be considered a GM retirement, the OP's stated criteria of meeting either 30 years of service, or combined age plus service (85) is correct. GM stopped contributing into pensions in 2013, but that does not mean the payment values are not increasing for each additional month worked. The greatest savings to GM in salary layoff would have been in order of:
1.) those hired between 1989 and 1993, and younger than age 62. No early retirement supplement, no medical coverage prior to age 65, and no medicare supplement at 65 and older.
2.) Those hired between 1993 and 2002, No early retirement supplement, no further contributions to now former employee's medical fund. Were basically on there own to find medical coverage in retirement anyway
3.) All the rest.
Using the Fidelity retiree payment modeler, somebody who hired into GM in June 1990 at age 22, if released during February layoffs could have lost about $240,000 in a lump sum retirement payment compared to someone who hired in January 1989 at age 22 (someone who would have qualified for early retirement). I do know two employees, both in early 50's, one hired in 1990 and other in 1991, that were released in February.
My 8th level manager had less than an hour notice of who was being laid off.
I know for a fact that my manager who is a 9th level knew well in advance who would be laid off. Maybe it varied by organization regarding how it was handled.
I only had 4 years in the company, the guy next to me only had 3. Both of us had good CAPs. We both, however, had programs whose plants were on the unallocation list. For my team I think that was the deciding factor
Trump has proven that bad press for doing bad things has no effect.
He doesn't care, and GM doesn't care.
And people forget quickly anyway.
I was one of the many laid off in Feb. Not sure about the pension part but this memo seems very accurate. During January, my former manager and current manager at time (I worked 2 groups), emailed Mark Reuss and Stephen Jenkins (I worked in MPG) frequently in January about layoff progress/expectations bc all employees were anxious and he never received any response nor was he ever given any input of group. My group had more older employees so I was chosen as well (I'm 31 yrs old), to offset the average age. It seems the target avg age was 39-45yrs old to avoid age discrimination lawsuits. FYI, I had met/above expectations for my CAPs every year
The media is not your friend. The "media" is the "company".
If this guy went on record to the press and disclosed his name, he would be a hero :)
Wonder if a business case was created that showcased all the savings, vs all the loss of opportunity through bad press.
@YZk9ZpI does not know what he is talking about regarding pensions. Depending on when you joined GM and how long you have worked at GM, there is an opportunity to receive your full age 65 pension when you reach age 62. Your pension when you reach age 65 has been locked in...if you want to wait that long.
@YZk9ZpI Your post makes no sense.
Pensions were frozen around 15 years ago. It doesn't matter if you quit, got fired, got canned, or worked for GM until you retired. When you hit retirement age, that pension is YOURS. There is NO pension savings to GM to can the guy nearing retirement.
Cuts were made in order to be a cross-section of employees that made GM impervious to age discrimination lawsuits. That's all.
Did directors/exec directors get to pick favorites? Of course. It's GM after all.
Did managers get a say? Nope. Haven't talked to one yet that had more than an hour notice of who was gone.
Were cuts based on lack of skill, lack of contribution, lack of education, lack of performance, or any other performance-based metric? No. We were told that the cuts were NOT based on performance, and we can plainly see that good people in critical areas were cut.
YZk9ZpI-1tzq Google where raw Cobalt comes from and how it is extracted from the earth , you will not want anything EV. You will see that it is not only a large impact on our Earth but also violates human rights in the whole process. So much for a " green new deal" it's all a pack of lies.
I knew that many engineers worked in AV were let go. They hided their real "purpose", and make the people hate EV, AV, Tesla & China, etc. If it is true, this is scandal. They and their behind should be brought into the Justice and make them lose everything so that nobody dare to do the similar things in the future. They quickly forgot the ignition switch scandal because none of them were put in the jail with over hundreds deaths. What are our government doing now with our tax money? Are we still in Ameica?
1qwn- agree , take it to the free press , it's news worthy and if enough attention is created about a professional union more people will start thinking harder about it. I have to say after almost 20 years of being a contract employee , getting jerked around from what seemed to be always having bad managers , if I was finally hired salary I'd fight the fight with you guys. Alot of us contractors actually worked hard for GM , all we wanted was to get hired , the favorites got hired alot of times and that's the truth. Contract people are the forgotten few , never ever mentioned in the paper , just tossed aside like garbage. Many times I had salary people say to me that they mite as well be contract employees , that says it right there! Form a professional union now or forever be walked on.
And this is why it's time have a professional union. Employees need to fight back and have representation!!!!. This problem employees are now facing has similar overtones of what line workers endured 50 60 years ago, only now it's in an office environment. This is not only a problem in automotive, but in many business sector's. The only thing companies care about is the very wealthy investors.
1ivn- Amen ,
It sounds true. Why did GM do that? It is a short-sight strategy. Isn't it? Can't believe that the idea comes from GM leaders with MBA, they seems never learning anything from their classrooms. They don't care about their reputation. They, their children & their grandchildren... will suffer from their bad reputation eventually, and their money and authority will disappear eventually. God and people will remember what they have done.
This makes sense.
I know a guy in Austin that doesn't do a dam thing but kiss the CCA IT directors butt!
Didn't GM learn from the ignition coverup not to do this?
Corvette wheel defect cover up:
https://jalopnik.com/corvette-owner-sues-general-motors-over-allegedly-defec-1834675372
The morality of the diversity growth at GM makes up for the immorality of the layoffs and the coverups... that's how the new morality of the left works.
I made a call to the free press , I was told that they need names to print in the paper or online so that it's a credible source. I know all of this is true what you folks are saying because I've lived it.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I work at Ford and we are in the middle of a similar process, where the secrecy has dragged on for eight months. Significant layoffs are happening at Ford the week of May 20 with older, higher priced workers targeted. Ford is a cess pool of backstabbing a**s kissing, terrified managers that are trying to stay afloat by any means possible right now.
The irony is that GM and Ford will have to rehire some of the expertise they let go in the layoffs. We all know a college grad cannot come in and understand the lessons learned in various engineering choices. Mistakes will be made over and over and will end up costing Ford and GM Way more than the cost of keeping senior high performing people that have learned along the way.
This is what it is like to work at Ford right now:
In my department people are starting to undermine each other. The fear is so overwhelming that everyone is scrambling for cover and safety like we are all on the Titanic. Managers are cc'ed on every email now, and everything is put in writing to cover a**ses. No one is willing to make a decision. People try to earn brownie points with management by throwing their coworkers under the bus. Management says nothing to us but slogans.
When asked if there is going to be a layoff, our LL4 and LL5 will look us right in the eye and say our department is not going to be affected and that we are growing. No one believes them.
Our department was always a bit rigid with roles and tasks. It was considered the right thing to do to have your set of tasks and stick to them. Occasionally we would help each other. We are over staffed with about double the people needed or more to do the work if we were all working at full capacity. We all know this on some level, so we look around and try to figure out who will be kept and who will not. This makes everyone really suspicious of any changes in tasks or duties.
Now, people are totally territorial. If a mistake is made and you are asked by management to help someone, the person you are supposed to help will eye you with suspicion and do anything in their power to not accept your help or have you get involved. Everyone is being shuffled around in our department which makes this suspicion unbearable. We were inefficient before, as described above. Now we are completely paralyzed. No work is getting done.
Our management are trying to get more direct reports under them. They seem to think this will help them survive.
People are getting sick from the stress and there is a lot of people taking personal days.
I just want this all to be over. Whether I get the axe or not, I will be better off knowing what my fate is.
I wish everyone nothing but warm regards and hopeful wishes that they land in a safe place.
This posting should go public, OP should send to Detroit News, Free Press, Automotive News, and others.