GM CEO Mary Barra said 15 employees have been fired and five others have
been disciplined over the company's failure to disclose a defect with
ignition switches that is now linked to at least 13 deaths.
The company also will form a compensation program for families of
victims and those who suffered serious injuries in accidents related to
the switches. The program is expected to begin taking claims Aug. 1.
Barra made the announcement Thursday as she released an internal
investigation into the recall of 2.6 million older small cars for
defective ignition switches. She didn't immediately name the employees
who were dismissed.
She called the investigation "brutally tough and deeply troubling." It
took GM more than a decade to report the deadly switch failures.
"I hate sharing this with you just as much as you hate hearing it,"
Barra told employees in a town hall meeting at GM's suburban Detroit
technical center. "But I want you to hear it. I want you to remember it.
I want you to never forget it." Barra promised to "fix the failures in
our system."
Barra says attorney Anton Valukas interviewed 230 employees and reviewed
41 million documents to produce the report, which also makes
recommendations to avoid future safety problems.
The crisis began in February, when GM recalled 780,000 older-model
Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 small cars because of defective ignition
switches. GM soon added the Saturn Ion and other small cars to the
recall, which ballooned to 2.6 million cars worldwide.
The switches in the cars can slip out of the "run" position and shut
down the engine. That disables the power-assisted steering and brakes
and can cause drivers to lose control. It also disables the air bags. GM
says at least 13 people have died in crashes linked to the problem, but
trial lawyers suing the company put the death toll closer to 60.
Last month, GM paid a $35 million fine — the largest ever assessed by
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — for failing to
report the problem quickly to federal regulators. GM knew about problems
with the ignition switches as early as 2001, and in 2005 it told
dealers to tell owners to take excess items off their key chains so they
wouldn't drag down the ignition switch. In 2006, an engineer at GM
approved a change in the switch design, but didn't inform the government
or change the corresponding part number. In subsequent years, that made
it harder for other GM engineers to figure out why older Cobalts
performed worse than newer ones.
COPY http://abcnews.go.com/
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