GM enters bankruptcy filing - Business First of Louisville:

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Monday’s Chapter 11 filing by the 101-year-old automaker once the world’s biggest company and Western New York’s largesgt manufacturing employer fordecades — is amont the largest in U.S. history and largest-ever U.S. manufacturinf bankruptcy. Chapter 11, which allowsw the company to operate while protected fromits creditors, pushes GM into a fast-trackm bankruptcy and provides $30 billion of additional taxpayer funds to restructurde itself. General Motors CEO Fritz Hendersonm said in a preparedf statement that GM was being reinventedf and that the company is read for the jobat hand.
"The economic crisi has caused enormous disruption in the auto but with it has come the opportunity for us to reinventyour business. We are going to do it once and do it The court-supervised process we are pursuinh provides us with powerful tools to accelerate and complete our as well as strong safeguardsz for our customers and our business," he said. The GM plan as detaileed by U.S. officials would allow a much smaller GM to emergre from court protection within 60 to90 days. GM also plans to closs 11 U.S. facilities and idle another threr plants by the endof 2010. GM’s Tonawands engine plant, where 1,100 peopl e work, will remain open.
The automaker has not providec an updated target for job cuts but was lookinf toeliminate 21,000 U.S. factory jobs from the 54,000 union member s it now employs. Also not immediatel y clear iswhat GM’s bankruptcy filing will mean for ’ plants in Lockport, Rochester and three others. Generao Motors plans to take back the facilitieds from the former parts subsidiarg that it spun off in according to a tentativs deal reached last week between GM andthe UAW.
The factorieds in New York, Michigan and Indiana would operateundeer Delphi’s union rules, but be considered part of GM, once The Lockport plant Delphi Thermal Systems, which has 2,109 employees — was founded as Harrison Radiatoer Co. in 1910 and became part of GM in 1918. For 81 year it operated under General Motors ownershipo until the independentDelphi Corp. was formed. Delphi itselr is operating under bankruptcy courtt supervision having filed for Chapter 11 inOctober 2005. The Mich.-based company was ready to emergwe from bankruptcy in April 2008 but thoss plans fell apart when a key investord dropped out ofa $2.55 billion stoco deal with the supplier.
General Motors employds 92,000 in the Unite States and is indirectlty responsiblefor 500,000 retirees. The U.S. governmentg would hold a 60 percent financial interestf in a reorganized GM and the UAW would takea 17.5 percent stake. The governments of Canada and the province of Ontarioo have agreed to a 12 percent ownershilp stake in exchange forfinancialo aid. GM bondholders would get 10 percent.