General Motors CEO Mary Barra said Tuesday that she does not expect the company to fire more employees over defective ignition switches blamed for 13 deaths.
GM announced last week that 15 workers, including some executives, had been shown the door. It took the company more than a decade to start recalling cars because of the problem. An internal investigation cited a pattern of “misconduct or incompetence.”
“We feel we’ve taken the appropriate actions as it relates to the ignition switch recall,” Barra told reporters Tuesday at the GM annual meeting.
She repeated that the company expects to issue more recalls. GM has recalled 2.6 million cars because they may have bad switches, which can slip out of the on position while the car is on the road, causing a stall.
Barra and other GM executives took questions from stockholders. Of seven who asked questions, none had significant criticism of how the company handled the matter last week, and most praised Barra’s leadership.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who called in to urge more minority representation in the company, also gave Barra good marks: “You faced a crisis with integrity and courage and transparency and contrition.”