About 40 have signed up for St. Louis

So far, about 40 employees of Famous Footwear in Madison have told the parent company, Brown Shoe, they plan to stay with the company and move to the St. Louis area, Brown Shoe spokeswoman Erin Conroy said Thursday.

Brown Shoe said in April that it will consolidate Famous Footwear 's corporate headquarters into its own corporate base in Clayton, Mo. The move will mean the loss of 270 jobs for Madison.

Over the past two weekends, Brown Shoe has flown more than 100 Famous Footwear employees and family members to St. Louis to better acquaint them with the community, at no charge to the employees, Conroy said.

She said no deadline has been set for Madison workers to decide if they 'll take the offer to relocate when the move begins in mid-July.

Famous Footwear president Joe Wood and the senior management team will be among those staying with the company, Conroy said.

MANUFACTURING

GM offers cash to help end parts strike

General Motors Corp. has agreed to kick in up to $200 million to help bring an end to a 10-week strike at parts supplier American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings. The automaker said Thursday in a government filing that the money would go for temporary payments to buffer reduced wages for the workers, as well as employee buyout and early retirement packages.

About 3,600 United Auto Workers at five American Axle factories have been on strike since Feb. 26 in a dispute over the company 's quest for lower wages and benefits. The strike has crippled GM 's production of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles and hurt its bottom line. About 30 GM factories, including the one in Janesville, have been either fully or partially closed due to the strike.

No deal had been reached between American Axle and the UAW as of Thursday afternoon.

BIKE TO WORK WEEK

Network222 building holds bike event

People who work in the Network222 building, 222 W. Washington Ave., will get an early start today to next week 's Bike to Work Week with an event from 8 to 10 a.m. in the building lobby.

Carrie Scherpelz, communications director of Madison Environmental Group, which is sponsoring the event, said experts will offer biking tips and Williamson Bicycle Works and Fitness of Madison will offer bike tune-ups in a tent outside the building.

Managed by the Fiore Cos. of Madison, the Network222 building houses 30 businesses with about 450 employees, including Sonic Foundry.

BRIEFLY

The Gialamas Co. and Marshall Erdman & Associates have received LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The certification is for One Erdman Place, which is the headquarters building for Erdman. The building was completed late last year in the Old Sauk Trails Business Park on Madison 's West Side. The Gialamas Co. is a real-estate developer. Erdman is a developer of health-care facilities.