DETROIT (AP) — General Motors Corp. workers and others across the nation were beginning to deal with the automaker’s historic bankruptcy filing Monday and the effect on their plants and lives.
Markis Coleman, 30, a GM employee at a plant in Orion Township, Mich., north of Detroit, said shortly before the bankruptcy was announced that there is little he can do even as much needs to be done.
“I’m going with the flow,” the 10-year company veteran said Monday morning. “It’s all in their hands. I’m going to let them do it. But they need to change things, though. They have to change.”
The once-mighty corporate giant whose brands were household names and plants the lifeblood of many U.S. communities filed its Chapter 11 petition in New York Monday. It marks the fourth-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and the largest for an industrial company.
The deal will give taxpayers a 60 percent ownership stake and expand the government’s reach into big business.
GM’s reorganization plan will rely on up to $30 billion of additional financial assistance from the Treasury Department. That’s on top of the $19.4 billion in taxpayer money GM already has received as low-interest loans.
Rickey Holmes, 28, a Xerox contract worker for GM at its Renaissance Center headquarters in Detroit, said the turbulence spreads well beyond those who collect a check directly from the automaker.
“Everybody’s job is worth worrying about,” Holmes said. “I can’t sit here and be upset when you have no control over it. It’s a situation where you hope everything works out for everyone, especially GM. I’m especially praying that GM stays here in Detroit.”
Xerox hasn’t told its workers at GM what the future holds for them, he said.
Brenda Peay, 28, of Detroit, is employed by Tax Lease Consultants, where she mails out tax notices on property owned by GM.
“My job may not be crucial to the production of a car,” she said, yet her future could still depend on how GM emerges from bankruptcy.
Delores Jackson, 47, who works at GM’s Orion Township plant and has logged 24 years with the automaker, is keeping calm and relying on her faith to get through.
“You know what? Everything is on the bubble,” she said. “So I just take it one day at a time and I trust the Lord. He put me here, he knew everything that was going to happen when he sent me here so that’s where my trust is at.”
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<img src=" http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/new.gif" border=0> GM workers taking in bankruptcy, its effects
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