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James R. Healey reports that General Motors has fired 15 people who either were incompetent or irresponsible in their actions involving fatally flawed ignition switches that are linked to 13 deaths in crashes where airbags failed to inflate. "A disproportionate number of those were in senior roles or executives," said GM CEO Mary Barra. Two high-ranking engineers previously put on paid leave were among them, said Barra adding that five more employees "one level removed" were disciplined in unspecified ways because they "simply didn't take action."
A far back as 2002, General Motors engineers starting calling it the "switch from hell" but it would take a dozen years, more than 50 crashes and at least 13 deaths for the automaker to recall the ignition switch, used in millions of small cars. GM's own internal investigation never explains how a lone engineer in a global automaker could approve a less expensive part that failed to meet GM standards. Nor does it illuminate why the same engineer could substitute an improved design without changing the part number, a move critics cite as evidence of a cover-up. After the first cars with the switch went on sale, GM heard complaints from customers, employees and dealers. But "group after group and committee after committee within GM that reviewed the issue failed to take action or acted too slowly," the report said. A unique series of mistakes was made," said Barra. And the problem was misunderstood to be one of owner satisfaction and not safety. GM engineers didn't understand that when the switches failed, they cut power to the airbags.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday June 08 2014, @08:33PM
You don't want murder charges, which would be negligent homicide at most. It would be fought in court for years since the bar to proving guilt in those instances is quite high. Go for the lower hanging fruit, which is better anyways.
To be fair, this was probably an instance of mismanagement and miscommunication. The engineers literally never put it together that the faulty inferior spec'd switch was interfering with the operation of safety equipment. When you're not actually making a decision to make a million more dollars (at most from the savings) knowing that people will die, you don't really think that you're guilty and will go to prison. Executives so rarely go to prison anyways.
What you want is real change. The best way to do that is to hit them where it really hurts. The shareholder meetings. When the government comes in and assesses all of GM a 5% fine over the next 3 years, it will create a situation in which it's impossible to lay blame and escape it.
That's what you want. Executives to not be thinking about who could absorb the blame, but realizing that irrespective of any political hierarchies and department responsibilities in the corporation, that they are going to eat it *big time*.
You want them to all suffer together, every single time. Think of it like that drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket. Don't punish Pvt. Pile, punish the whole platoon. Do so, and you create a real working series of deterrents where the mismanagement and willful ignorance are feared, not rewarded.
Punish them all strongly enough, and they will watch each other. That has to be with money, as money will travel all the way up to the 1st Class Citizen, the Shareholder. Hurt the Shareholders enough, and there will be change.
Sounds cynical, but this country is not run on ethics or ideals anymore. Those were set aside for the almighty dollar a long time ago...
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 08 2014, @10:56PM
If all the engineers were doing their job properly, it would have illuminated the fact that this was a safety issue. I've seen, first hand, how an issue can grow an aura of "touch this and commit career suicide" within a company. If the persons charged with corrective action, quality, etc. are asking the questions they are supposed to, to the people they are supposed to be asking them, and those people are giving it the thought they are paid to give it, then the fact that a faulty switch can lead to airbag failure should have shown up in the first round of meetings on the issue - and after a decade, there should have been multiple rounds of meetings.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday June 08 2014, @11:39PM
That's what I'm talking about. Human behavior.
Only in rare instances, mostly related to Big Pharma, do I actually believe that somebody was reasonably certain people were going to die and decided to do nothing about it. More than likely, they justify the deaths of a few to save many. Those people deserve to rot in prison for the rest of their lives with the entirety of the corporation sold with the proceeds distributed amongst the families of the deceased.
You can switch the career suicide around real simply be assessing such a steep percentage based fine against a corporation. Would you want to be the one that cost GM a couple hundred million dollars over a few years? I'm pretty sure carrying around that label would be considered career suicide a lot more than the guy who spoke up and saved GM hundreds of millions of dollars by recommending a manufacturer recall.
In both cases the real issue is one of money. That's why it's career suicide to recommend any action where the consequences of doing nothing are cheaper than the costs of doing something.
Make the costs of doing nothing, lying, cheating, and harming the consumer be percentages (always), and in some cases let that go up to 90% of all profits. You do that and the mechanism you've seen can work for the consumer instead of against them.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Twike on Monday June 09 2014, @03:15AM
You may wish to look into Hollywood accounting principles and practices before suggesting "of all profits" instead of other metrics like "income before deductions" or something similar.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday June 09 2014, @04:15AM
Good point. This is why those people need fines like this ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday June 09 2014, @04:35PM
The engineers literally never put it together that the faulty inferior spec'd switch was interfering with the operation of safety equipment.
That's exactly what TFA says the investigations revealed.
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