GM offers early retirements and buyouts

General Motors Corp. and the UAW today reached an agreement on the first phase of a package of retirement and buyout offers intended to help the automaker take advantage of cost-savings measures in its new labor contract.

In the first phase of its so-called special attrition program, GM will offer buyout, retirement and early retirement packages to all of its UAW-represented hourly employees in its service, parts and operations divisions across the country, Pittsburgh Metal Stamping, its Massena, N.Y., plant and to union members in jobs banks in Oklahoma City, Okla., Linden, N.J., and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

The automaker said details of a special attrition program for assembly, stamping, powertrain and engineering facilities will follow in early 2008.

About 5,200 workers will be eligible to participate in the first phase, GM spokesman Dan Flores said. Details of the plan will be made public shortly after the holidays, he said.

The buyout and retirement offers are expected to closely resemble those offered to GM and Delphi workers in 2005 and 2006.