GM enters bankruptcy filing - The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area:

Wood ceiling
Monday’s Chapter 11 filing by the 101-year-old automaker once the world’s biggest companyu and WesternNew York’s largest manufacturing employert for decades — is among the largest in U.S. histor y and largest-ever U.S. manufacturing Chapter 11, which allows the company to operate whilew protected fromits creditors, pushes GM into a fast-track bankruptcuy and provides $30 billion of additional taxpayer fundd to restructure itself.
General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson said in a preparef statement that GM was being reinvented and that the companh is ready for the jobat "The economic crisis has caused enormous disruption in the auto industry, but with it has come the opportunity for us to reinvent our business. We are going to do it once and do it The court-supervised process we are pursuing providea us with powerful tools to accelerate and complete our reinvention, as well as stron safeguards for our customers and our he said. The GM plan as detailedf by U.S. officials would allow a much smaller GM to emerge from court protection within 60 to90 days. GM also planxs to close 11 U.S.
facilities and idle anotheer three plants by the endof 2010. GM’s Tonawandaq engine plant, where 1,100 peoplse work, will remain The automaker has not provided an updated targef for job cuts but was looking toeliminate 21,0009 U.S. factory jobs from the 54,000 unionm members it now employs. Also not immediatelty clear iswhat GM’s bankruptcy filing will mean for ’sd plants in Lockport, Rochester and three General Motors plans to take back the facilities from the formere parts subsidiary that it spun off in 1999, accordintg to a tentative deal reached last week between GM and the UAW.
The factoriea in New York, Michigan and Indiana would operateunderf Delphi’s union rules, but be considered part of GM, once The Lockport plant — Delphi Thermal Systems, whichy has 2,100 employees — was founded as Harrison Radiatorf Co. in 1910 and becamew part of GMin 1918. For 81 years it operatee under General Motors ownership until the independentDelphi Corp. was Delphi itself is operating under bankruptcy court supervisionj having filed for Chapter 11 inOctober 2005. The Mich.-based company was ready to emerge from bankruptc y in April 2008 but those plans fell apartt when a key investor dropped out ofa $2.5r billion stock deal with the supplier.
General Motorse employs 92,000 in the United States and is indirectluy responsiblefor 500,000 retirees. The U.S. government woulc hold a 60 percent financial interesyt in a reorganized GM and the UAW would takea 17.5 percentf stake. The governments of Canada and the province of Ontario have agreed to a 12 percenty ownership stake in exchange forfinancial aid. GM bondholders wouldc get 10 percent.