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Dealers of the GM and Chrysler businesses that were forced to close when the companies went bankrupt last year will finally get to have their frustrated voices heard. A news report was released today stating that the over fifteen hundred closed GM and Chrysler dealerships looking to reopen were informed of arbitration hearings beginning in March. For the insolvent auto companies, the results of these hearings could potentially mark a very expensive setback at a time when they are struggling to get back on their respective sets of feet. For the dealers, many of whom are families coping with the loss of their livelihood during the worst economic period our generation has seen, it’s a chance to finally get some justice.

The Free Press article from which I read about the news quoted the Russo family, owners and operators of the Lochmoor Chrysler-Jeep dealership in Detroit, Michigan. Lochmoor Chrysler-Jeep was one of the hundreds of Chrysler dealerships closed as a condition of the auto maker’s Chapter 11 reorganization. (Almost two thousand more dealerships are currently being wound down by Chrysler, or will have their franchise agreement terminated once it comes to term.) The Russos are furious at the fact that their family dealership was painted by the corporation as an underachiever, when the reality could not be further from the truth. The family owns no other dealerships.

On GM and Chrysler’s end of the bargain, they claim that the dealership closures were necessary to “cut transportation costs, reduce inventories and have more profitable surviving dealers with a smaller network” as part of the restructuring agreements that they struck with the US government. Dealerships, however, counter that they paid for their own showrooms, vehicles, and employees as independent businesses that the corporations had no right to close. This dispute will come to a head thanks to a bill passed by Congress and President Obama allowing closed dealers to challenge their closings through the arbitrations process.

The Free Press article estimated that the closings of ten Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge dealerships in the Detroit area have led to some nine hundred seventy lost jobs and over sixteen millions dollars in lost state sales, income and property tax revenue. Another family dealer quoted claims that GM and Chrysler have “ruined 800 families without any compensation,” and that these companies need to step up and part with some of the relief money being shoveled to them by Congress to help the dealers that sold their vehicles for so many years. Chrysler, for its part, claims that reinstating terminated dealers will add back costs it thought were eliminated and gone off the books, further setting back its repayment and restructuring. However, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne made a statement earlier this month saying that the terminations left open locations where the company may need to bring back a selected few dealers. “We are going to be spending about a half-billion dollars on network development over the next four or five years,” Marchionne said. “I think there may have been some genuine cases where there has been an honest difference of views.”