Friday, November 21, 2008

We Own GM

Since the Big Three have already accepted taxpayer bail outs over the past five years, and now are delinquint on thier pension payments for their workers, why bail them out, we already own them. Time to make them publicly owned under workers control.

As the Toronto Star reported Saturday, GM's actuaries estimated the pension plan for hourly workers would have been short $4.9 billion if the company had gone out of business at the end of November, 2007. But because the pension fund is heavily invested in stocks, the recent fall in stock markets would have left the fund short another $1.5 billion, assuming no other changes in the meantime.

Paul Duxbury, an actuary who has advised GM pensioners in the past, said yesterday that such a shortfall would cost Ontario's guarantee fund as much as $3 billion, if the province provided the money.

The General Motors of Canada Ltd. pension funds had a shortfall of $4.5-billion as of last November - before the stock market collapse - creating a massive financial headache for the Ontario government and pension cuts for retired employees if the company falls into bankruptcy protection.
Senior GM officials revealed the shortfall between the assets in the company's unionized and salaried plans and their liabilities in a meeting yesterday with the editorial board of The Globe and Mail. The shortfalls are measured on a solvency deficiency basis, which would apply if the plans have to be wound up in the event of bankruptcy.


SEE:
Auto Solution
Whiners and Losers
Business Unionism Offers No Solution To Capitalist Crisis
Concessions Don't Work
And Then There Was One
Pension Rip Off
Buzz Off
Unions=Competitiveness
McGuinty Corporate Welfare
Is Delphi the Oracle of things to come?
How Ford Screwed Up
What's good for GM is bad for Workers
Unions the State and Capital
Chrysler Made In Canada?



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