In a bid to quell worker concerns over bankruptcy, General Motors paid more than 90,000 employees three days early this week. Employees were slated to receive their paychecks on Friday but GM decided to hand them out on Tuesday.
General Motors will likely be forced into bankruptcy as soon as next week, with the latest move intended to easy some of the fears of the pending Chapter 11 filing. “It was done to reassure employees worried about bankruptcy,” GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson told Automotive News.
Wilkinson added a bankruptcy filing wouldn’t affect the company’s payroll payments.
Additionally, GM has moved up payments to some 1,500 suppliers to today. Those suppliers were scheduled to receive payment on June 2nd – likely the first day of the automaker’s bankruptcy.
GM was hoping to sidestep a Chapter 11 filing but a recently failed debt-for-equity swap likely sealed the Detroit automaker’s fate. GM needed bondholders to agree to give up 90 percent of the company’s debt in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the future company but reportedly fell well short of that mark.
