G.M. Chief Faces Harsher Tone at Second Hearing
Source: NYTimes
By BILL VLASIC and MATTHEW L. WALD
Soon after General Motors’ chief executive, Mary T. Barra, took her seat on Wednesday before a Senate panel to answer questions about the company’s decadelong failure to fix a faulty ignition switch linked to 13 deaths, she received a blunt message of what was to come.
The company, Senator Claire McCaskill said, had a “culture of cover-up” that allowed an employee to lie under oath and discouraged quick action on fixing the defective switch that can accidentally cut off engine power and disable air bags. And there was little to back up Ms. Barra’s contention that the company had changed its ways since emerging from bankruptcy in 2009, Ms. McCaskill said.
It took nine months, Ms. McCaskill noted, before G.M. took any action once it was confronted in April 2013 with evidence in a lawsuit that the switch had quietly been changed sometime in 2006.
And she was blunt in characterizing the actions of a G.M. engineer, Ray DeGiorgio, who had testified in a court case that he knew nothing about the change in the switch. On Tuesday, the House committee presented a document showing he had signed off on it.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/business/gm-chief-opens-testimony-to-senate-panel.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043
Photos of accident victims were displayed as Mary T. Barra, chief of G.M., testified at a Senate panel on Wednesday. Credit Mark Wilson/Getty Images
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