Cutting Jobs at General Motors Case Study

I. Cutting jobs at General Motors is a case that explains the issues taking place, and have been taking place with General Motors (GM). GM is at a place where the only money being dealt with is the money they have to pay their workers. This includes hourly pay, benefits, and pay to their retirees. Since the 1970s, GM sales has been declining. To better the company, and get them back on track, the CEO of GM, Rick Wagoner, announced a restructuring of the company. He explained how he wanted to study the product mix. This also included cutting 2,500 jobs which calculated out to 14% of the workforce. He also spoke about closing some manufacturing plants by 2008. It has been said that General Motors just does not produce cars that customers want anymore, but they have been doing their best to change the minds of those who believe that. II. 1) Based on GM’s current condition, I believe it is ethical of them to reduce the number of employees. General Motors, as well as their stakeholders (all those who are affected by the activities of the organization) are already seeing a horrible future. If General Motors was to keep all of their employees, they would go bankrupt to the point where they will no longer be able to even keep their business going; meaning instead of the 14% who no longer have jobs, 100% of the employees will be jobless. I believe it is ethical because just as GM need to look out for their employees and their customers, they need to be able to look out for themselves and the company first to make sure the company heads into the right track. If all employees were kept, they would be paying them for work that is not even coming in or being done. In order for any business to succeed, the head group of the organization needs to focus on what is good for them and their company in order to make it better, and in this case, I believe that is what GM is doing, and there shouldn’t be anything unethical about it.
2) General Motors has many