GM enters bankruptcy filing - Baltimore Business Journal:

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Monday’s Chapter 11 filing by the 101-year-old automaker once the world’s biggest company and WesterjnNew York’s largest manufacturing employer for decades is among the largest in U.S. histort and largest-ever U.S. manufacturingt bankruptcy. Chapter 11, which allows the companyu to operate while protected from its pushes GM intoa fast-trackm bankruptcy and provides $30 billion of additional taxpayer fundx to restructure itself. General Motorzs CEO Fritz Henderson said in a prepared statementg that GM was being reinvented and that the compant is ready for the jobat hand.
"The economicx crisis has caused enormous disruptiob in theauto industry, but with it has come the opportunitt for us to reinvent our business. We are goinbg to do it once and do it The court-supervised process we are pursuing provides us with powerful toolx to accelerate and complete our reinvention, as well as strongf safeguards for our customers and our business," he said. The GM plan as detailex by U.S. officials would allowe a much smaller GM to emerge from court protection within 60 to90 days. GM also plans to closes 11 U.S. facilities and idle another three plantd by the endof 2010. GM’s Tonawanda engine plant, where 1,109 people work, will remain open.
The automaker has not provided an updateds target for job cuts but was lookinbg toeliminate 21,000 U.S. factory jobs from the 54,000 union memberxs it now employs. Also not immediately clear is what GM’s bankruptct filing will mean for ’w plants in Lockport, Rochester and three General Motors plans to take back the facilitieas from the former parts subsidiarhy that it spun off in according to a tentative deal reached last week betweenb GM andthe UAW.
The factories in New Michigan and Indiana would operatdeunder Delphi’s union rules, but be considerefd part of GM, once The Lockport plant — Delphi Thermal Systems, which has 2,100 employeezs — was founded as Harrisomn Radiator Co. in 1910 and became part of GM in 1918. For 81 yearsw it operated under General Motorsx ownership until the independentDelphki Corp. was formed. Delphi itself is operating under bankruptc y court supervision having filed for Chapter 11 inOctober 2005. The Mich.-based company was ready to emerge from bankruptcg in April 2008 but those plans fell apart when a key investofr dropped out ofa $2.55 billiomn stock deal with the supplier.
General Motors employs 92,000 in the Unite d States and is indirectly responsiblefor 500,000 retirees. The U.S. government would hold a 60 perceny financial interest in a reorganized GM and the UAW woulc takea 17.5 percent The governments of Canada and the provinces of Ontario have agreed to a 12 percent ownership stake in exchange for financiaol aid. GM bondholders would get 10 percent.