At the General Motors assembly plant on the outskirts of Oklahoma City there are 2,300 reminders of why the company needs to persuade tens of thousands of workers to take the buyouts it offered last week.

Each day, these workers report for duty at the plant, pass their time reading, watching television, playing dominoes or chatting. Since GM shut down production there last month, these workers have entered the Jobs Bank, the industry's best form of job insurance: It pays idled workers full salary and benefits even when there is no work for them to do.

The Jobs Bank is one critical burden that GM has to carry as it embarks on one of the biggest challenges — and biggest balancing acts — of its corporate survival. To become a leaner, profitable company, it needs to convince the right number of workers to take the buyout, without chasing away its best people and without being stuck with excess workers, who could swell the ranks of the Jobs Bank.

But in factories like the one in Oklahoma City, where workers were first interviewed on a visit last month and then over several weeks, the buyouts could be a hard sell.

"Why would I walk out the door with $2,000 less per month and have to go find a job when I can sit in the bank, get my 30 years and retire?" asked Pruitt, who at 53 has 27 years seniority. "It's really to my advantage to ride the bank out as long as it goes."

GM's buyouts were a way for the company to cut 30,000 factory jobs by 2008. The buyouts also partly reflect GM's goal to pare down the Jobs Bank, according to officials at GM and the United Automobile Workers union, who refused to be identified because of the program's sensitive nature.

The future of the Jobs Bank is highly uncertain. As part of the buyout deal, GM and the union agreed to begin discussions no later than Dec. 31 on how to handle workers who remained in the Jobs Bank.

Today, UAW union representatives will meet in Detroit with local union leaders from across the nation to brief them on the plan's details and offer guidance.

One issue weighing on union leaders is whether the 7,500 workers in GM's Jobs Bank should take the buyout or wait until the union renegotiates its contract, which expires next summer. By that time, however, the current buyout program will have ended, and it is not clear if GM will again provide generous incentives to retire.

While GM has not said it will push to eliminate the Jobs Bank when its contract with the UAW expires, it is no secret that company executives think the program is a drain on its ever-tightening financial resources. With average wages for a factory worker adding up to about $65,000 a year, or $1,250 a week, GM is spending $9.4 million each week to pay the salaries for its idled workers in the Jobs Bank, not including their health care and pension costs.

In the short term, General Motors hopes to entice as many of its 113,000 hourly employees as possible off the payrolls with the buyouts, which for some could be worth up to $140,000. With more openings, it could move workers out of the Jobs Bank into productive factory roles. But in the long term, analysts say the company must negotiate with the UAW to end the Jobs Bank program.

The Jobs Bank was conceived in 1984 when General Motors commanded roughly 45 percent of the American vehicle market and employed 416,000 factory workers in the U.S. The UAW wanted to ensure that GM, the Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler — which have similar programs — kept as many jobs in the U.S. as possible. The argument was if the auto companies had a pool of idled workers, they would be less likely to outsource labor overseas.

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