DETROIT -- In a series of historic talks expected to be tense and sweeping at times, General Motors Corp. will launch formal negotiations this week with the United Auto Workers, bondholders, dealers and others to transform the automaker into a smaller, viable company.

GM has pledged to revamp labor contracts, reduce debt and shrink the number and type of vehicles it produces to satisfy conditions imposed after the federal government granted the automaker and Chrysler LLC $17.4 billion in emergency federal loans. The loans will ensure the companies survive through March, but each automaker must develop plans by Feb. 17 to ensure long-term viability.

GM needs financial concessions to implement a restructuring plan unveiled last month that includes eliminating up to 31,000 jobs, shutting nine plants and renegotiating its 2007 labor contract with the UAW. GM also wants to close 1,750 dealerships, possibly eliminate Saturn and convince banks and bondholders to swap some of the company's debt for equity.

Key stakeholders such as the UAW have resisted calls for additional wage and benefit cuts. But unless GM and Chrysler receive concessions from the union and others -- or President-elect Barack Obama relaxes restructuring targets -- they could be forced to file bankruptcy, a threat that looms over the negotiations, analysts and industry experts said.

"Nobody wants to go there," said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

To stay afloat during the upcoming talks, GM received a $4 billion loan from the government on Jan. 31. GM is scheduled to get another $5.4 billion on Jan. 16 and $4 billion more Feb. 17, if Congress opens the second half of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue package. A $4 billion loan for Chrysler LLC was finalized Friday and the troubled automaker is expected to begin restructuring talks this week too.

The loans to GM come after the Detroit automaker has lost almost $73 billion since 2004. Its U.S. sales fell more than 22 percent last year. A lack of available credit, low consumer confidence and rising unemployment are curtailing demand for new cars and trucks across the industry. GM's eight brands each posted sales declines in excess of 20 percent last year.

Overall, industry demand dropped more than 16 percent.

GM's woes are expected to be underscored again today when it reports a sharp drop in December new car and truck sales.

Lower debt a key factor

The Bush administration's restructuring targets include reducing debt by two-thirds via a debt for equity exchange, requiring the UAW to accept half of the health care trust fund payments payable to the union from the automakers in 2010 in stock rather than cash, and new factory work rules and wages that are competitive with foreign automakers by the end of 2009.

GM hasn't faced such pressure to radically restructure since the Great Depression and the early 1920s, when a financial crisis prompted lenders to force company founder Billy Durant out for a second and final time and Alfred P. Sloan assumed the reins of the company.

Talks with the UAW could be tricky, and any concessions GM gets will be sought by rivals Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler.

Ford, which did not seek immediate government aid but has asked for a $9 billion line of credit, does not have to meet the same requirements as GM and Chrysler but is also restructuring. The Dearborn automaker has said it thinks it can get similar concessions from the UAW and other stakeholders because of the dire state of the industry.

UAW pins hopes on Obama

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has vowed to work with the Obama administration to remove terms of the loan deal that require GM and Chrysler to drastically cut wages and benefits.

In a column published Friday in The Detroit News, Gettelfinger said the Bush administration has unfairly targeted the UAW. "All stakeholders must participate," he wrote. "Unfortunately, the terms of the loans approved by President George W. Bush single out members of our union, by demanding steeper and faster concessions from the UAW than from any other part of the industry."

Gettelfinger said UAW members have made financial sacrifices. In the 2007 labor pact, the UAW agreed to slash starting wages and benefits for newly hired autoworkers at Detroit's Big Three to as low as $14 an hour. Those cuts don't affect current workers, whose hourly pay and compensation totals about $55 an hour.

The figure surpasses $70 an hour when the costs of health care for retired workers and other retirement benefits are included.

The hourly pay and compensation at U.S. plants operated by foreign automakers is about $45 an hour, labor analysts say.

The UAW has said it will suspend its controversial jobs bank program, delay payments to the union-run trust fund for retiree health care and modify the national labor agreements to allow for more potential wage and benefits cuts.

Leaders also have told local plant officials the union wants an ownership stake in GM and a seat on the automaker's board in exchange for further concessions.

The UAW could be spared stiff wage and benefits cuts if Obama achieves a national health care plan, which would lessen future payments into the union-run health care trust, Cole said.

In another set of delicate talks, GM needs to reduce its unsecured debt to about $12 billion, from about $36 billion, by negotiating with bondholders to swap debt for equity in the company.

Doing so would slash the amount of interest GM is paying each year by about $2 billion to $3 billion, said Gregg Lemos-Stein, a Standard & Poor's credit analyst. "That is not insignificant, but they are burning about $2 billion a month," he said.

GM will most likely make a tender offer similar to one made by GMAC Financial Services last month, Lemos-Stein said. On Wednesday, the company said it had raised $21.2 billion through a debt-for-equity exchange.

Slashing dealers, brands

Another key element in GM's restructuring plan submitted to Congress last month is its plan to cut about 27 percent of its 6,400 dealers in the next three years and close, shrink or sell Pontiac, Saab, Hummer and Saturn.

Dealerships are protected by state franchise laws, complicating any plans to downsize. The sharp decline in new car and truck sales has accelerated the shutdown of GM dealerships nationwide, and the sale of the Hummer and Saab brands would further thin their ranks.

The National Automobile Dealers Association expects about 700 dealerships to close this year.

"GM has been and will continue with efforts on streamlining its dealer network through channeling, consolidation and natural attrition," said GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos.

Offering dealers cash to merge or close is a costly undertaking, one analyst said. GM spent more than $1 billion in settlements with dealers when it killed the Oldsmobile brand.

GM has not shared with dealers its plans for Saturn, where sales dropped more than 21 percent last year.

"If they're fair with us, we'll be fair with them," said Rick Galles, a New Mexico Chevrolet dealer who also owns one of the original Saturn dealerships.

"You're not dealing with lightweights. Most were hand-picked -- the top guns of General Motors" dealers, he said. "If they become combative and say, 'This is the way it's going to be, the highway or my way,' obviously we'll take a whole different look at it."