By Angelo Young - General Motors CEO Mary Barra returned to Capitol Hill Wednesday morning to face a grilling from House lawmakers regarding the automaker’s vehicle-safety crisis just days after it expanded a recall related to ignition-switch problems.
Joining Barra is Anton Valukas, the former U.S. attorney hired by General Motors (NYSE:GM) who delivered a report earlier this month relieving top executives of any responsibility for why it took over a decade to address a fatal ignition switch flaw linked to at least 13 deaths and 53 accidents.
On April 2, Barra testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, when committee chair Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) accused GM of having a “culture of cover-up.”
Now, House members are armed with the results of the 325-page Valukas report (pdf) issued June 6 that Barra described as “brutally tough and deeply troubling.” So far the internal investigation has led to the firing of 15 employees, mostly mid-level executives, for failing to inform superiors of problems in cars. The appearance before the House Energy & Commerce Committee chaired by Fred Upton, a Republican from GM’s home state of Michigan, comes on the same day Businessweek published a scathing cover story centered on Courtland Kelley, a third-generation, 30-year GM employee.
The story underscores a culture at GM where company underlings feared to speak up about safety concerns. In 2003, Kelley sued GM under a local whistleblower law, but the case was tossed out on technicalities. Kelley’s career was derailed after that, he said, when he was transferred out of his position as head of a nationwide GM vehicle inspection program.
The story draws on details provided in the Valukas report and builds a case that GM’s corporate culture shielded top executives from being aware of potentially fatal vehicle flaws, which could help plaintiffs build a case against GM challenging its liability protections granted when the company emerged from bankruptcy in 2009.
On Monday, GM announced it was recalling 3.6 million more of its cars in North America linked to problem with the ignition switch.