Wild Ass Rumor of the Day: GM Pays UAW Retirees a $700 Xmas Bonus

by Robert Farago

Published: December 14th, 2008

An anonymous source sent us this heads-up. We’ll chase it up tomorrow (Monday). Meanwhile, back in October ’07, Newsweek pegged the number of GM retirees at 340k. So, if true, this works out to a $238m hit to GM’s bottom line. At least. UPDATE: GM spokesman Tony Sapienza tells us that GM paid up to $700 in “year-end inflation adjustments” to 284k hourly retirees on Monday. Some 73k surviving spouses received up to $455 each. The total cost to GM: $200m+.

Robert Farago

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Seanx37 on Dec 14, 2008

I did some checking with a family friend(after posting above). She got her checks(widow of another retired worker) yesterday as well. She was somewhat suprised by it. As for the retirees getting too much in the way of pension and benefits. You and I may agree. But this is what they were promised. These things are what they worked for. A lot of people worked very hard at the Big 3 for a long time in order to provide for their families. How many doctors,lawyers,teachers,engineers, etc.. went to school due to their auto worker parents? Millions? Much of the wealth of the US was created this way. Blue collar parents worked hard for their kids to not have to work in a factory.

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Rcguy on Dec 14, 2008

@rocket88 This parity with transplants is a good example of technical correctness. For one thing why don't these guys say how much foreign auto producers make? Because the hourly wage+benefits are within pennys of parity now. And the only way to make us "greedy" unionized workers look bad is to add retirees benefits to worker hourly pay, as if we get that too.

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Anonymous on Dec 15, 2008
porschespeed My father retired from GM in 1992 or 1993. IIRC, not too long after GM established a cut-off date for non-union retirees to be eligible for the old school retirement plan (pension, health insurance, long-term care, etc.) Since then they have slowly frittered away at his benefits to the point that as of next year he no longer has health coverage. I understand and I agree that the defined benefit pension model is unsustainable, which is why the system was changed for non-union employees and retirees years ago. The problem I have (and the problem my father, who retired 15 years ago, REALLY has) is that they're changing the rules for retirees long after they can do anything to make up for the loss of benefits. Benefits that were promised to them and that they based their savings and spending habits when they worked on those promises. Everybody gets hung up on UAW this and UAW that, but the truth is there is a small but not insignificant pool of non-union, non-management retirees who have been getting the short end of things for years because costs need to be cut somewhere and for one reason or the other they didn't join the union. As my father likes to remind me once in a while, that pool is only getting smaller.

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Dushenski on Dec 16, 2008

Dollars well spent as GMAC clings to dear life.

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