Carmaker General Motors Co told the United Auto Workers (UAW) it will no longer pay union employees to leave the company, the Wall Street Journal said.

The company, which has spent billions of dollars over the years coaxing workers to quit, has indicated it has no intention of using such a program, the paper said, citing officials who attended a recent UAW meeting with union leaders.

The UAW has been pressing General Motors to consider another round of buyouts and retirement incentives similar to programs that have encouraged 66,000 hourly workers to leave since 2006, according to the Journal.

General Motors spokeswoman Kim Carpenter told Wall Street Journal that rather than launching a new buyout program, the carmaker would use flexibility allowed under its UAW contract to adjust manpower up and down.

In addition to being able to move workers more freely from plant to plant, GM can hire temporary labor for short-term needs, the paper said.

UAW and General Motors could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Shrutika Verma in Bangalore, editing by Will Waterman)

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