Posted on 05/01/2012 3:12:44 AM PDT by equaviator
GM realigning technology organizations; Warren Research and Development Center will see cuts
WARREN, Mich. - At General Motors' Research and Development Center at the Warren Technical Center campus there is pain and still more concern.
Local 4 has learned the automotive company plans to cut more white collar jobs. Employees were notified about the cuts this past Friday.
GM gave Local 4 the following statement on Monday:
"GM leadership recently notified employees working in its Global Research and Development organization of plans to realign the organization's business structure. These moves will enable the organization to better focus on commercializing customer-focused innovation in a more efficient and cost-effective manner."
Transition: GM's technology can't get too far ahead of what drivers want. Thus, the company is scaling back and moving around some of its programs.
Soon, 100 salaried and contract employees at the Warren R&D Center will get pink slips. They will receive severance packages.
However, the Tech Center will pick up 60 new salaried jobs when GM closes its Honeoye Falls, N.Y. fuel cell lab and transfer them to Warren.
The Honeoye Falls lab is a good example of what GM is trying to reign in. The hydrogen fuel cell is technology which is still at least 10 years out and instead of being an independent lab it will get folded into the GM powertrain division in Michigan.
Until the day after the election, keep the bad news coming; I can’t believe they’re actually reporting this stuff...
“GM’s technology can’t get too far ahead of what drivers want.”
Car buyers are just too stupid to know what to buy. That’s why Barry has to dictate our purchases.
Seems logical. Why on earth would a company that screwed its premium bond investors, acquiesced to the UAW Pension Fund by giving them a lion’s share of the company and then finally turns over the rest of the company to Obama want to keep a Research and Development Center for cripes sake?
I mean, since Obama and his environmental zealots are and will be telling what technology, what improvements (sarc)and what cars to build, why on earth would a research and development operation be needed? For that kind of money, they could fund thousands of those UAW guys that sit around the ‘excess labor’ recreation hall every day.
Mike
I’ve always had mixed feelings on the bailout. The real issue with this one was the control seized by Obama. My neighbor saw the writing on the wall and got out of Chrysler about 5 years ago.
100 employees is a minor drop in the ocean when you look at the entire list of those employed at GM.
They could eliminate several hundred more by getting rid of the “Volt” that the public does not want. That would save a ton of money.
The bailout was never needed for a successful Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The most that would have been needed was federal loan (post-petition) guarantees to insure adequate financing.
The bail-out money was nothing more than a slush fund to insure that union pension funds, and other favored programs, suffered as little as possible.
If people recall their history, the bailouts were first discussed, and sold to the pubic, as a way to help the auto companies avoid a Chapter 11 filing.
It’s OK to lay off white collar workers. They don’t automatically donate to the Democrat party.
“the non-union white collar workers are the ones that really got screwed.”
Yes, and among those are/were seasoned highly skilled design and engineering professionals. We were told (Pelosi) to embrace our misfortune and that here we have the opportunity to develop or reinvent ourselves as artists, musicians, poets and writers of the next great American novel, which added major insult to injury. But in hers and their minds they were showing us where to find this new light in the midst of the darkness they helped to create.
I for one, involuntarily rejected that notion because when you like the work you do in your chosen profession and some elderly broad representing her district in San Francisco, CA is suggesting that you should give it up for being a loser...well, it just rubs you the wrong way like a stranger on a crowded street. You want to say, “Get it off of me!”
Neither do all blue-collar workers.
That's so very true, I know a bunch of former hourly Chrysler workers who are Republicans as well as a bunch of union workers from my former plant who are also.
GM developed the Chevy Volt at its Warren Technical Center in Michigan. (GM photo )
What the hell is that...Obama’s Ark?
That is the birthplace of the Chevy Volt. The Warren Technical Center.
That is the birthplace of the Chevy Volt. The Warren Technical Center.
I know. I’ve worked there before the VEC (Vehicle Engineering Center) and since it was built. There is much, much more to the GM Tech Center than just the VEC.
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