13 Years Ago In Time

The news that GENERAL MOTORS is cutting 5,000 jobs on top of the 25,000 it announced months ago has an air of déjà vu.

The bloodletting promises to be deep and wide and painful. Impatient with [chairman Robert] Stempel's slowness in carrying out plans to close 21 of GM's 120 North American plants and cut 74,000 of its 370,000 employees over three years, directors now want to eliminate a total of 120,000 jobs during the decade ... "It's going to be brutal," warns a GM director. "If the unions won't cooperate, GM will have to play real hardball. We don't even have the luxury of thinking about a product strategy. We aren't going to be thinking great thoughts. GM has a three-year mission to restore its financial soundness" ... The company that once bestrode the world now has trouble paying its bills. "We wasted too much time and money, and we're finally down to the point where it's nip and tuck," says a senior GM executive. "To me, the sad part is, Couldn't we have done it any other way?" --TIME, Nov. 9, 1992

Read the entire article at time.com/years