Awful precedent.(General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. cutting matching funds to employee retirement savings)

Pensions & Investments, January, 2003

***** Correction: The name of Brian H. Graff was misspelled in a Dec. 23 editorial, ``Defined benefit plan savior?'' ***** General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. are sending the wrong message at the wrong time about retirement saving. At a time when many employees already have lost faith in 401(k) plans and the capital markets, the auto manufacturers are cutting, or eliminating, their match of the employees' contributions.

The companies, in other words, are telling employees not to look to them to shore up their defined contribution plans maimed by the markets. How shortsighted. These companies are undoing years of educational efforts aimed at getting employees to participate in such plans and to save more for retirement. They are sending the...

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