General Motors Creates Safety Chief Position After Recall Fiasco

General Motors Co. said Tuesday it will name a long-time executive to a new position overseeing its global safety efforts as it seeks to stem the fallout from the company’s recall of 1.6 million vehicles for ignition switch defects linked to 12 deaths and 31 crashes.

GM CEO Mary Barra said in a statement that Jeff Boyer has been named vice president for global vehicle safety, saying his first priority will be to quickly identify and resolve product safety issues.

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randy3023 - 3/18/2014 4:36:56 PM

+1 Boost

The division of responsibilities of GM's corporate officers:

1) Accounting/HR/Marketing/Purchasing/Supply Chain/Legal/IT
2) Design/Development <-- CARS

Seems to me safety would fall under #2, categorically.

But no, lo and behold, GM would have us believe a "chief of safety" truly ought to be the person tasked with recognizing a pattern of failure in the design and performance of one of the automaker's key platforms, not all the other overpaid, do-nothing corporate executives who lead the design/development team. Oh, no actually, they don't really focus on safety! They focus on other stuff. So they are not at fault! Oh no, this would have been the responsibility of the "chief of safety", if there was one.

This is "redirection" — the famous trick of illusionists. GM's Mary Barra would like to lead people to think it was a crucial hole in GM's organizational structure which resulted in a "safety" issue, when in fact there was/is a culture of cronyism, corruption which led to failed management and ultimately failed designs.

Interesting that GM thinks it can fix this problem with P.R. firm and $170,000 in salary for a "chief of safety".