GM Has ‘A Comprehensive Plan to Address Dealer Concerns’
General Motors and Chrysler have been the target of frustration from thousands of dealers that were cut from the companies' networks during last summer's restructurings. The automakers, dealers, and other interested parties have proposed a variety of ways to resolve the matter -- including mediation and congressional intervention -- but none has met with much success. Now, General Motors has announced a "Comprehensive Plan to Address Dealer Concerns", which the company developed in conjunction with members of congress and the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers. (NADA seems to have stayed away from the bargaining table.) At a glance, GM's proposal seems to address most of the dealers' major concerns, but it does come with one very important caveat.
The three main components of General Motors' plan include:
* A commitment to advise all Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac dealerships that received a complete wind-down agreement of the criteria used by GM in the selection of that dealership for wind-down.
* A face-to-face review process for all complete wind-down dealers who have not already terminated their dealer sales and service agreements with GM.
* If the complete wind-down dealer is not satisfied with the outcome of the face-to-face review process, he or she may elect to proceed to binding arbitration. The arbitration will expressly be limited to whether GM selected the dealer to receive the wind-down agreement on the basis of its business criteria.
The aforementioned caveat comes in paragraph two of the release: "GM will begin to implement this plan in mid-January provided that legislation related to GM's dealer restructuring does not move forward." In other words: call off the congressional dogs, we'll handle this ourselves.
GM's full press release is pasted below. Considering the complexity of the problem, the document is a quick read, so kudos to the company's press team for that. We'll see if Chrysler publishes anything similar in the coming weeks.
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