BY Donna Lange-Tucker

Copy Editor

History was made last week when General Motors, at one time the world’s largest automaker, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. According to reuters.com, this marked the third-biggest filing in U.S. history and the largest ever in U.S. manufacturing.

GM’s U.S. workforce had fallen from a high of 620,000 in 1979 to about 120,000 now, according to marketwatch.com. Its bankruptcy could lead to temporary layoffs of most or all of its remaining 61,000 production workers. The company has plans to temporarily shut 13 more plants to reduce inventories, affecting about 25,000 additional GM workers and a comparable number who work for suppliers.

The bottom line: The General Motors that once reigned as our foremost automaker is forever gone; its future as a successful and competitive corporation is yet to be determined. The economic damage that has already affected so many Americans is not over yet.

My friend and neighbor is a retiree from GM. He worked for 24 years in electrical maintenance at the GM Tech Center in Warren and accepted an early buyout package last year at the age of 65. Not wishing to be identified, “John” shared some of his thoughts about GM’s past, present and future.

John believes that executive decisions at GM are partly to blame for the current crisis.

“GM cancelled the Volt back in the late 1990s,” he said. “They should have pursued it – they could have been a forerunner. Instead they kept pursuing large trucks.”

“Everybody blames the bottom, the UAW, instead of the higher-ups. Blaming the UAW for the problem is like blaming the soldiers for wars, instead of the generals,” John said.

The retiree is disappointed in the public’s lack of support for government aid to the American automaker.

“I’m amazed at how the public isn’t reflecting support of one of the largest corporations in the country that [was responsible for] creating the middle class,” John said. “People have forgotten that it’s a loan to be paid back with many rules and stipulations. AIG was given ten times the amount with zero stipulations. Their executives were paid millions. Everybody has forgotten.”

He approves of President Obama’s efforts to restructure GM.

“He’s doing what other countries do around the world to help corporations,” he said. “The Japanese and Germans support their manufacturing. GM had been the largest corporation in America.”

As a retiree, John will be losing some of his benefits, including reduced health care coverage.

“These benefits had been negotiated in previous contracts in lieu of pay increases,” he said. We’re losing dental and vision benefits and will have increased prescription costs. GM didn’t put money aside for the future. I’m healthy now, but what happens when I’m not?”

He believes the future may be poor for GM.

“In order for GM to survive, they have to put an engineer in charge of the company. Financial men are running it and they don’t know what the public wants,” John said. “They’re totally out of touch with the buying public and they’re responsible for not having the right cars at the right time.”