Delphi workers protest over pensions, pay cuts

WW photo: Cheryl LaBash

Hundreds of GM/Delphi workers and their supporters picketed Jan. 8 outside Detroit’s Cobo Hall, site of the North American International Auto Show. Organized by the rank-and-file group Soldiers of Solidarity, the demonstration protested Delphi’s threats to slash wages, benefits and pensions, and also eliminate most jobs for its 34,000 U.S. union employees. Defiant chants included, “We aren’t tame, we aren’t mild, we’re the voice of the rank and file” and “GM/Delphi you should know, we won’t be your PATCO.”

The air-controllers’ union PATCO was smashed in the early 1980s in a vicious anti-union attack by the Ronald Reagan administration.

Police had the workers fenced off hundreds of feet from the convention center. When they blocked attempts by some protesters to march past Cobo Hall, the chant went up, “The criminals are in there.” Earlier in the week a member of the SOS steering committee was harassed by the FBI.

While the militant protest was happening in Detroit, SOS also held a mobilizing meeting in Lockport, N.Y., site of a major Delphi plant.