General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC are offering blue-collar employees another round of buyout and early retirement offers as the automakers try to cut their work forces and reduce expenses, union officials said.
GM detailed its offers in an e-mail message to local union officials yesterday, according to a union official who spoke on condition of anonymity because workers have yet to be notified of the packages.
Chrysler made its offers Friday to all hourly workers represented by the United Auto Workers except those at the company's Kenosha, Wisconsin, engine plant, according to a memo detailing the offers that was obtained by The Associated Press.
Chrysler spokeswoman Shawn Morgan confirmed in a written statement that the company is making the offers. She said they would have been presented to employees in December, but they had to be delayed because production was suspended at Chrysler's factories for much of December and January.
Both GM and Chrysler have seen sales decline with the overall US auto market and have been forced to take government loans in order to survive.
According to the memo from UAW Vice President General Holiefield to local presidents and other officials, the union negotiated for another round of offers at Chrysler because of conditions the federal government imposed on the company in exchange for granting the loans.
The conditions require the Chrysler and GM to make changes to their UAW contracts, including elimination of the jobs bank, in which workers get most of their pay even when they are laid off.