WASHINGTON — General Motors chief executive Rick Wagoner said Ford’s labor agreement with the United Auto Workers that cuts cash payments to a union-managed trust won’t work at his company.
GM is asking the UAW to cut $20.4 billion in future retiree health-care obligations to $10.2 billion in exchange for equity as part of an agreement to keep $13.4 billion in U.S. loans and as it requests as much as $16.6 billion more. Wagoner spoke Tuesday in Washington, spokesman Greg Martin said.
“The Ford program does not meet our needs at all,” Wagoner said, according to a copy of his comments recorded by GM. “We need to do something different, and we’re working with the UAW on how we might do that.”
The comment spotlights a dispute that resulted in the UAW walking out on talks with GM on Feb. 13 over payments to a trust known as a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, a union-run retiree health-care fund set to form next year. UAW members at Ford on March 9 ratified contract changes with the automaker.
Ford responded that its new labor contract allowing it to cut cash contributions in half to the retiree health-care fund “is a hugely important step.”
Ford, the only U.S. automaker to forgo federal aid, owes more than $13 billion to the fund, known as VEBA. GM and Chrysler, operating with $17.4 billion in federal loans combined, are seeking a break on trust payments from the UAW.
