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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: 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.