Unions reject insulting Delphi offer

On Oct. 21 Delphi Automotive Systems made its first offer to its unionized auto workers since the corporation filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 8. This contract offer contained even deeper wage and ben efits cuts than the company’s earlier proposal, which was roundly rejected by the unions and prompted the bankruptcy filing.

Delphi has 33,000 unionized workers in its U.S. facilities, over 24,000 represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and 8,500 represented by the International Union of Electrical Workers.

Delphi’s new proposal called for base wages of $9.50 an hour for existing production workers, $10.50 an hour for high production workers, and $19 per hour for skilled trades. This is a drastic cut from the $26 an hour the average Delphi worker currently makes.

Cost of living and profit sharing would be dropped. Monthly premiums for health care and prescription drugs would be imposed: $85 for singles, $170 for couples, $160 for single employees with children and $240 for couples with children. Currently, autoworkers pay no premiums for their health care benefits.

In addition, deductibles and co-pays up to $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 per family would be imposed on health care coverage. Dental and vision coverage would be discontinued. Company-paid holidays would be trimmed from 16 to 10 per year, and the Christmas and Inde pendence week holidays would be eliminated. The pension plan would be frozen on Jan. 1, 2006, and possibly eliminated.

Anti-worker bankruptcy court

In making this outrageous “offer” to the union membership, Delphi management was obviously buoyed by the actions of the New York bankruptcy court, which has jurisdiction over the Delphi bankruptcy. In the month since the bankruptcy was filed, the court has already demonstrated its bias in favor of the corporation and against the workers.

For example, one of the first actions of Deirdre Martini, the trustee named by the court to oversee the bankruptcy proceedings, along with U.S. District Judge Robert Drain, was to name the “unsecured creditors” committee. The role of the Creditors’ Committee is a significant one in a Chap ter 11 bankruptcy. It reviews and gathers infor mation about the debtor’s activities and financial condition and participates in the formulation and negotiation of the plan of reorganization. Normally, the Creditors’ Committee consists of the largest unsecured creditors.

Incredibly, despite the fact that the UAW represents the largest group of individuals who will be affected by Delphi’s bankruptcy, and despite the fact that the UAW specifically requested to be included on the Creditor’s Committee, the union was excluded.

The bankruptcy court’s corporate bias was further demonstrated on Nov. 4, when the bankruptcy judge approved Delphi’s proposal to offer millions in sweetened severance packages to its top 21 executives, including 18 months of salary and 18 months of bonuses.

Massive job losses & tax deficits

A confidential Delphi memo code-named Northstar identified plans for the corporation to shut five U.S. plants: in Flint, Mich.; Kokomo, Ind.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Vandalia, Ohio; and Tucson, Ariz. The Flint plant alone employs 3,400 workers.

A study by the Anderson Economic Group of East Lansing, Mich., estimated a reduction in Delphi employment of over 12,500 workers, with the closing of at least 10 U.S. plants. This study estimated that Delphi’s proposed “reorganization” would cost the federal government $4.8 billion in lost income taxes, tax revenue and pension liability. Under the best-case scenario, it would cost the state of Michigan, already suffering from the highest unemployment in the country, $390 million in lost tax revenues.

Auto workers want to fight back

On Nov. 8, the six major industrial unions that represent Delphi’s hourly workers formed a coalition in a solidified effort to take on the corporation. In announcing this coalition, UAW spokes person Paul Krell stated: “We are outraged by Delphi’s attempt to use the bankruptcy process to dictate the radical destruction of the living standards of America’s industrial workers.”

Krell announced that UAW president Ron Gettelfinger has endorsed a job action called “work to rule,” which means that Delphi workers perform no duties beyond the workplace rules. “Work to rule” essentially amounts to a slowdown strike. Work to rule would also mean no overtime.

In addition, numerous UAW locals have already expressed their readiness to strike Delphi in December if it persists with its outrageous demands. A rank-and-file worker from UAW 598 in Flint, Mich., has published an on-line petition opposing Delphi’s union busting, available at www.thepetitionsite.com. In Dayton, Ohio, a community march to defend the workers’ jobs has already taken place, with another scheduled for Nov. 25.

Town hall meetings are being organized for rank-and-file UAW members and community activists to come together and strategize on how to fight the Delphi bankruptcy. They are being organized by rank-and-file groups like New Directions, Members for Change and Futureofthe Union.com., and are being publicized on websites and blogs as the workers avail themselves of the new technology to communicate and organize.

Asserting right to their jobs

The key is for the unions to develop a program and strategy to fight back. The Job Is a Right Campaign, which helped lead the struggle against General Motors plant closings from 1986 to 1988, popularized the demand for a moratorium on plant closings. It has issued a flyer calling for a three-part strategy to fight back.

The flyer raises the demand that the UAW be named trustee to administer Delphi through bankruptcy proceedings and urges calling a mass demonstration outside the bankruptcy court in New York to press this demand.

It calls for rank-and-file Delphi workers to prepare for a strike if Delphi attempts to impose its wage and benefit cuts, and to prepare to occupy the plants to assert the property right of the workers to their jobs if Delphi begins to shut plants and dispose of its assets.

The flyer also points to Article 50 of the UAW constitution, which authorizes a referendum vote for a general strike of the entire UAW membership when the “existence of the international union is involved together with the economic and social standing of our membership.”

The flyer states, “Just beginning this pro cess of a vote on a general strike in every UAW local would send a message that the fight against this bankruptcy will not be limited to so-called ‘legal’ channels that inevitably result in disaster for the workers. The organized power of the rank and file can defeat the Delphi bankruptcy and turn around the corporate drive to lower wages and benefits for the entire working class.”

The writer is a UAW retiree and leader of the Job Is a Right Campaign.