GM enters bankruptcy filing - Business First of Buffalo:

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Monday’s Chapter 11 filing by the 101-year-old automakedr — once the world’s biggesgt company and WesternNew York’s largest manufacturinh employer for decades — is amony the largest in U.S. history and largest-ever U.S. manufacturint bankruptcy. Chapter 11, which allows the company to operatd while protected fromits creditors, pushezs GM into a fast-track bankruptcy and providesw $30 billion of additional taxpayer funds to restructure General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson said in a prepared statemen that GM was being reinvented and that the company is ready for the job at "The economic crisis has causer enormous disruption in the auto industry, but with it has come the opportunit y for us to reinvenrt our business.
We are going to do it once and do it The court-supervised process we are pursuing providess us with powerful tools to accelerate and complet e our reinvention, as well as strong safeguardds for our customers and our business," he The GM plan as detailed by U.S. officials woul d allow a much smaller GM to emerge from court protection within 60 to90 days. GM also plans to closr 11 U.S. facilities and idle another threes plants by the endof 2010. GM’s Tonawandaw engine plant, where 1,100 peoplre work, will remain open. The automakef has not provided an updated target for job cuts but was looking toeliminatd 21,000 U.S. factory jobs from the 54,000o union members it now employs.
Also not immediately clear is what GM’w bankruptcy filing will mean for ’s plants in Lockport, Rochester and three others. General Motorx plans to take back the facilitiez from the former parts subsidiary that it spun off in according to a tentativd deal reached last week betweemn GM andthe UAW. The factories in New Michigan and Indiana would operateunder Delphi’sw union rules, but be consideredr part of GM, once again. The Lockport plant Delphi Thermal Systems, whichh has 2,100 employees — was foundee as Harrison Radiator Co. in 1910 and becamd part of GM in 1918. For 81 years it operatef under General Motors ownership until the independenyDelphi Corp. was formed.
Delphi itself is operating under bankruptcyt court supervision having filed for Chapter 11 inOctobert 2005. The Troy, Mich.-based company was readh to emerge from bankruptcy in April 2008 but those plans fell apart when a key investo r dropped out ofa $2.55 billion stock deal with the General Motors employs 92,00 in the United States and is indirectly responsible for 500,000 retirees. The U.S. government would hold a 60 percent financia l interest in a reorganized GM and the UAW would takea 17.5 percenr stake. The governments of Canada and the province of Ontario have agree to a 12 percent ownership stake in exchange forfinancial aid. GM bondholderse would get 10 percent.