The New York Times reports that GM CEO Rick Wagoner has resigned his position with the ailing American automaker. Wagoner will tender his resignation ahead of President Obama’s statement at 11 a.m. today regarding the next round of bailout bucks for the zombie automaker. “As recently as March 18, Mr. Wagoner said in an interview that he had no indication that his job was in jeopardy because of the task force.” The PTFOA has directed that Wagoner’s hand-picked successor and current COO Fritz Henderson assume the top slot—temporarily. Word has it that Steve Rattner, the head of the Presidential Task Force on Autos, initiated Wagoner’s long-overdue defenestration. [General Motors Death Watch below.]
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Neither… he was whacked.
“And, has thou slain the Wagoner?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.
Also, Autoblog is claiming he resigned at Obama’s request.
Was he pushed or did he jump?
If he jumped, how does this square with his statement last week, that he intended to stay around until things were put right?
p.s. Nice reference RF, and below, I give you more from the same reference, and in an odd way, it also fits to the dowager General:
“She was beautiful in face and form and lovelier still in spirit. As a flower she grew and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine. There had never come to her a single great sorrow. None ever knew her who did not love and revere her for her bright and sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. Fair, pure and joyous as a maiden, loving, tender and happy as a young wife. When she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun and when the years seemed so bright before her, then by a strange and terrible fate death came to her. And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life forever.”
Smart move. Why stick around to put up with all the bullshit? He has enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life.
toxicroach, what are you some kind of Jabberwock or something?
“Mr. Wagoner was asked to, and agreed to, step down as part of G.M.’s restructuring agreement with the Obama administration” according to the NYT.
w00t!!!1
Ashes to Ashes
Dust to Dust
Now the question is, are they going to do what Ford did and promote an outsider? Or are they just going to promote from within?
Also, apparently, the fate of Hummer will be decided by Tuesday.
Holy smokes, them mgmt over there sounded like they were really digging their heels in for the longest time, I think this is probably good news.
They need somebody over there that’s not some old-boys network insider. Seriously, I think Alan Mulally has done an excellent job of turning Ford around and getting them to focus on building quality products (no pun intended). It’ll be interesting to see who they choose as his successor. They should probably pick me so I can speed up bringing the Cruze to the US market.
Alternatively, they should pick somebody who respects the small-car market & recognizes that you need quality entry-level offerings to gain customers early on. Few young people will buy and Aveo or Cobalt when there are so many better offerings in the categories – I know I personally would spend $16k on a Fit before I’d buy a $13k Aveo.
GM still thinks Americans don’t like small cars, as Mark LaNeve said last week at the Minneapolis Auto Show, but that completely ignores the fact that the Corolla and Civic are the #3 & 4 selling cars (excluding trucks) in the USA! Americans like small cars just fine, they just don’t want to buy junky small cars.
GM needs an outsider to come in like Mulally did, someone who can realistically recognize the industry’s problems and who isn’t tied to too many insiders, someone who isn’t scared to shake things up and maybe hurt a few feelings. I just hope they don’t get some evil slash-and-burn guy like Bob Nardelli…
“The Detroit News says Obama initiated Wagoner’s long-overdue defenestration.”
Wow, just wow. Props to Mr. President.
Not as big a deal as I thought.
He who killed the electric car killed himself!
Hows Hummer working out?
Wow, it only took 8 years! Better late than never… Is Nardelli next?
And what happens now, who’s going to take Wagoner’s place?
Hasn’t Wagoner presided over the destruction of more wealth than Enron?
The real question here is if the CFO will replace him (again).
If so, this is much less a big deal. And a whole lot more idiotic.
Poor guy/ All he walks away with is millions of dollars paid out over 30 some years. I hope his family doesn’t suffer much, at least not as much as the rest of us poor souls getting laid off without much prospects in this market.
About-effin’-time.
So is the Big O going to install a ideological crony in the top spot at GM (er American Leyland) or will American Idol and The Apprentice have a talent contest to see who loses bad enough to take the job.
How about we have a different version of The Biggest Loser to find a new CEO?
Probably was afraid Obama was about to ask that he give some of his bonuses back.
Oh, and I hope the President’s 2nd order was, take your shitty BoD with you as you leave.
OMG! NOOOOO !!!! Won’t that leave a huge vacuum at the top of the corporation ? The thought of it: GM on the ropes and now out there, rudderless, without world class….Oops. Sorry. Getting messages from alternate universe.
Everyone seems to be making that Eliot Spitzer face these days.
‘Bout time. Later, Waggy.
Hmmm, a buck a year pay and having to fly coach to DC every couple of months to plead for more time and money, or a multi-million dollar bullet-proof pension and sipping Tequila on the beach in Aruba. If I were him I know which I’d choose despite anything previously said to the press.
These are interesting times we are witnessing.
A US President tells the CEO of a major corporation he must resign. And he does.
Can’t wait for the media/corporate spins to kick in.
Should be interesting to see if he gets a golden parachute of any kind.
Heads had to roll for this round of bailouts. Who gets the ax when the next bailout comes around?
This is definitely a step in the right direction. Props to Obama for doing something I actually agree with. Only took 8 weeks a few trillion dollars, but I actually agree with one of his moves.
That’s the first positive step GM has made in a long time. Shame the Bast%$d keeps his ill gotten gains. Be interesting to see the spin GM put on his ‘resingnation’
So, Lutz is gone, RiR is gone – what’s the odds on others in the top echelon quiting?
Where’s the smart money going on his replacement – Carlos Ghosn or the guy from Fiat?
Now we can find out if someone else can do a much better job. I personally don’t think so, but am ready to be surprised. Under Wagoner, GM dramatically improved manufacturing efficienty and improved the products. Not enough, of course.
So far Mulally’s big move at Ford was to borrow a ton of money while this was still possible. Not exactly a recipe for success.
Chrysler is the only one of the three that is an absolute, unqualified train wreck.
Anyone who has actually run their own business knows it isn’t easy. And the larger the business is, the harder running it is.
When Saddam Hussein was captured Iraq was supposed to immediately change. It didn’t. After he was executed, again, things were supposed to change overnight and they didn’t.
The entrenchment of Mr. Wagoner and his people were/are so deep that GM is still going to be the same GM that they were and are for a long, long time.
You may have cut the snakes head off, but the body is going to wiggle for a long time.
I’d quit too if I had to keep dealing with the Obama administration.
Awesome! That’s pretty pathetic if Obama dropped the hardware on him. Any other self-respecting person would have quit a long, long time ago.
Ricky,
I just want to take this kind moment to THANK you for all the destruction you have bestowed upon the countless American communities under your “Reign of Terror”.
If I could say one thing, it is this: You were never fit for your role.
I salute your resignation.
I hope the Cadillac you drive off into the sunset in breaks down along the roadside….much like all the junk you have bestowed upon the American public.
Good Riddance.
-Rastus
I think it’s awesome…he sends the company into the crapper, not staying in touch with the realities and wants of the customer. Now he walks off into the sunset with some type of “golden goodbye.”
Early word is that Fritz Henderson is going to step in… unsubstantiated for all I know.
http://twitter.com/AutoTrader_com/status/1414239454
I am not sympathetic to Wagoner. I am, however, deeply troubled at the notion that Obama can demand his resignation so that the Obama administration can put its plan for GM in place.
What to you bet that the Obama plan will include the federal gov’t owning a substantial part of GM? Obama wants government ownership of a large part of what is now the private sector. Banks, GM, perhaps another car maker, then who knows what next.
With clowns like Barney Frank, and politicians fully bought by the envriomentalist groups, good luck ever getting a ‘fun’ car from GM ever again.
And last, do you think Obama will demand the resignation of the head of the UAW? Pffft. Game over, capital loses, labor wins.
When the Skipper bails, the rest of the crew become very fearful. This sure seems to qualify as part of the GM Death Watch series. I was wondering if it would ever happen.
I wonder how the market will react? Something has to give, and soon.
Americans will certainly buy small cars at the proper price, particularly when gas is expensive. However, GM is unable to make a small car that Americans will buy profitably. That is because GM’s productivity and product quality is not high enough given their cost of labor.
GM could either pay their workers less or improve their productivity. Their union contracts generally make it nearly impossible to pay people less. However, the problem with the improving productivity alternative is that GM would need fewer workers to produce as many cars, in a time where the car market is decreasing. GM is also generally unable to fire workers or close plants, again because of union contracts.
It’s a decades-old problem. GM was never able to respond to the higher productivity manufacturing techniques used by the Japanese. Not hiring new workers, or paying the new workers much less than the older workers has helped some, by allowing attrition to shrink the workforce. Yet, the unusually large size of the GM retirement benefits, combined with increasing life expectancy, has meant that GM’s costs haven’t gone down fast enough. They don’t sell enough cars currently to be able to hire enough young workers at cheap labor rates to subsidize all their retirees.
While a change at the top is overdue, things are so far gone at GM that I don’t think much will change. Too many GM execs have avoided the disfunctional reality of its business model by muddling through. Ok, so Rick is gone. But who – other than another GM career muddler – is gonna replace him? Who from outside of GM would even want the job – of having to deal with the feds, the unions, the bailouts, the congressional yahoos braying about compensation?
As RF pointed out, a chapter 11 filing two years ago would have positioned GM for a turnaround. A filing (with a Boeing-to-Chicago style move – Ren-Cen from Detroit to Austin?!?) would have been the bomb. /rant
Don’t let the door hit ya, Ricky!
Everyone listen, I have 25 years with Chrysler, and am 50+ years of age, Chrysler can leave Canada, but they would have to support me until I’m retirement eligible, which is in 4 years. At that point, they would gradually phase me into the 30 year retirement bracket, which means full pension and benefits. For those of us who paid our dues, and were smart about investing in the good times, a 4 year combination SUB + EI plus benefits is more than enough to live on. And then comes dessert, my 30 year package, with you guessed it, pension and benefits. I would not normally have mentioned this, but frankly, Ive been getting pretty upset being made the scapegoat for all of the auto industry’s problems, so va fungula.
Something else, even if there is no agreement this weekend, we still have a valid contract until September of 2011, so why panic ?? Personally, I would rather keep things the way they are, with that extra SPA week later this year. Also, did some of you ever think one of the reasons why GM, Ford and Chrysler are having problems is because you don’t buy domestic vehicles ? We’re told to buy Canadian produce, Canadian building supplies, Canadian wines, Canadian clothing, etc….why not Canadian made vehicles ?? You want us to make $20 an hour or less ? What does that do to the poor bloke who’s already making $15 or less/hour, and whose wages are indirectly tied to ours? Will he be happy making proportionally less now because he hates us ??
“Everyone listen, I have 25 years with Chrysler, and am 50+ years of age, Chrysler can leave Canada, but they would have to support me until I’m retirement eligible, which is in 4 years. At that point, they would gradually phase me into the 30 year retirement bracket, which means full pension and benefits. For those of us who paid our dues, and were smart about investing in the good times, a 4 year combination SUB + EI plus benefits is more than enough to live on.”
Not if they file bankruptcy.
Maybe they’ll give him a prototype Volt as a retirement gift, since it will save GM. Or definitely not.
The only thing we lose in bankruptcy are our benefits, which btw are slowly but surely being bled from us regardless. Our pensions are protected because they are VESTED !! I don’t need to go to the dentist as often, don’t need orthotics that much, massages are something I can get my wife to do ;->>, have 20/20 vision so don’t need eyeglasses, don’t take drugs, don’t need childcare coverage…….
JOB SECURITY
(308)
(a) Eligible employees are those employees
at the affected plant:
(i) who are between age 50 and 55 with
at least 10 years of credited service at the date of the plant
closure and are not eligible for Regular Early Retirement; or
(ii) who are at least age 48.1 but under
age 50, with at least 9.1 years of credited service at the
date of plant closure, who are placed on layoff and who
then attain age 50 with at least 10 years of credited service.
(b) Eligible employees will receive monthly
PRIMP benefits equal to (a) the sum of the basic and
supplementary benefit rates in effect under the provisions of
the applicable pension plan at date of commencement of
PRIMP benefits, multiplied by (b) the employee’s credited
service at the date of plant closure or, if later, the date at
which the employee attains age 50 with at least 10 years of
credited service;
Good riddance. Let’s rebuild the company using sound business leadership and good products.
Thanks, Mr. President.
Two words: Mitt Romney.
“Our pensions are protected because they are VESTED”
My friend, you are in for a series of rude shock in the near future…I’m sorry, but this is one of them.
With whom are these benefits ‘vested’ with? The company? Certainly, not with any government.
If the company does not exist anymore neither does your old contracts. Just because there is a new company that uses the old name, it does not make them responsible for the old commitments.
I am, however, deeply troubled at the notion that Obama can demand his resignation so that the Obama administration can put its plan for GM in place.
And so what would Barry be planning to tell Gettelfinger? “You’re fired, too” or “Welcome Back”?
My father-in-law used to work for a company that went belly-up last September. He was getting $**** every month, and since the bankruptcy his pension has remained intact. The pensions are vested with financial institutions as far as I know. And the company he worked with didn’t have near the financial clout as any of the big three. Our union has made sure that pension obligations remain outside the purview and reach of private companies, which is the reason they are vested. Besides, either the feds or provincial government guarantees a minimum of $1,000 per month in any such pension plans in existence.
@Cowboy59 Your pension is NOT garanteed.If anybody tells you different,they are either misinformed or lying.The provincial pension garantee fund,cannot withstand the collapse of the domestic auto industry.There is just simply,not enough dough.
COWBOY….Call your pension rep and get a copy of the CAW pension report written by Sym Gill.If your a drinking man,pour yourself a double,and have a seat.BEFORE you read it.
Michael…36.4 years local 222 retiree