The Buyout Sweepstakes

GM has offered buyouts to all of its 113,000 hourly employees in the United States. More than 35,000 workers took advantage of the offer by the June 23 deadline, and are expected to leave the company by the end of the year.

In contrast, Ford is only offering buyouts at some of its factories. Fewer than 6,000 Ford workers had accepted buyout offers as of July 1.

In addition as a reminder - Per instructions and in the interest of conserving energy, the A/C in this building is turned off over the weekend. It is turned back on again on Monday mornings at 5:00AM. Obviously it will take a little time to catch up, but not long. I was here fairly early this morning and it was not bad. Please refrain from calling maintenance, security, etc to complain about the heat on Monday mornings - be patient and bear with us.

Perhaps as an alternative to buyouts GM and Ford should offer their "workers" stock options that can be exercised sometime in the distant future, when the powers that be have determined that again the "big two" will be profitable. In addition as an alternative to turning down the thermostat "over the weekend", GM and Ford should institute mandatory telecommuting to reduce their carbon foot print everyday.