May 9th, 2008 by Liz Opsitnik
GM is in the news twice today and both reasons have to do with money.
On Thursday, GM said it will pay up to $200 million to help end the 10-week-old strike at American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. GM wants to help the Detroit-based parts supplier pay for employee buyouts, early retirements and incentives to tempt workers to accept lower wages, reports the Detroit News.
The strike by American Axle has cost GM more than $800 million and 100,000 vehicles of lost production. Currently, about 30 GM factories are idled because of the strike.
American Axle said Thursday that hopefully the extra cash will bring a quick end to the dispute, one of the longest labor protests in the union’s history.
“Now that GM has agreed to provide financial assistance … hopefully both parties can work to bring an agreement to this terribly costly strike,” American Axle spokeswoman Renee Rogers said.
The second reason GM is in the news today is because the company purchased its headquarters in downtown Detroit’s Renaissance Center, which it previously leased.
The company said it decided to purchase because the shaky real estate market made it a good time to buy. GM purchased the headquarters for $626 million cash, reports USA Today.
It also paid $200 million cash for two office properties in nearby Pontiac.
“We opted to purchase it outright because of the condition of the real estate market,” said GM spokeswoman Renee Rashid-Merem.
This seems like a lot of money for GM to shell out all at once, considering they posted a $3.3 billion first quarter loss.
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