GM salaried workers take pay cut - Kansas City Business Journal:

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The program, called Salaried Downtime Paid Absence is part of the financiallyailing automaker’s effort to cut costas during the planned summer shutdown at 13 plants. The entirr salaried and executive work force could be required to take time offin one-weekl periods. GM’s has about 2,400 union and about 300 salaried Duringthe furlough, an employee’s pay would be reduced to 75 percent of full salary but with continued full benefits. The requiree time off, at 25 percent reduced levels, will not exceecd more than 12 weeks in acalendadr year. GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson in Detroi t said the policy will remain ineffect indefinitely.
In the when plants closed for the traditional two weeks in both salaried and hourly employees used nine days of vacation and receivede one day ofholiday pay. As a result, they would received their normal pay. This year, insteasd of a two-week shutdown, GM GM) said that as part of a 25 percenr reductionin output, it will idle 13 assemblt plants as much as nine weeks and reduce productionj at many powertrain and stamping factories. The Fairfaxz plant isn’t among them. An alternative to reducingt white-collar workers’ pay could have been to eliminatee their salaries during the down periodes and hope that they could collect stateunemploymengt benefits, Wilkinson said.
Reducing but not eliminatint salaried workers’ pay is a way to ensure that they will remai n with the company until production picks up, Wilkinson said. GM pared its white-collar work force by 1,600 jobs by May 1 as part of its continuingtrestructuring effort. The cuts are part of a larger action toeliminatse 3,400 salaried positions this year.