American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings, Inc. announced that 1,473 UAW-represented employees agreed to participate in AAM's special attrition program. The program was offered to UAW-represented employees at AAM's facilities located in Detroit, MI; Three Rivers, MI; Buffalo, NY; Tonawanda, NY; and Cheektowaga, NY. Under this special attrition program, AAM offered a range of early retirement incentives, buy-outs and educational opportunities to its associates. Approximately 265 retirement-eligible associates participated in this program, while an additional 1,208 associates elected one of the buyout options at these facilities. More than 1,300 of these associates left the company before year-end 2006. "The special attrition program accelerates our ability to realign our hourly workforce with actual and projected production and market conditions," said AAM co-founder, chairman, & CEO Richard E. Dauch. "The structural cost benefit to AAM resulting from the special attrition program and other related restructuring actions should exceed $100 million annually. This will enhance our ability to invest in the continuing expansion of AAM's product portfolio, served markets, customer base and global manufacturing footprint." In addition, AAM also announced that it plans to idle a portion of its U.S. production capacity dedicated to the mid-size light truck product range. As a result of these plans and other capacity rationalization initiatives, AAM expects to incur asset impairment charges of as much as $200 million in the fourth quarter of 2006.