Delphi delays trashing contracts again

“Can’t stop thinking about tomorrow,” or so the song goes. This was surely true on Feb. 16 for 75 rank-and-file autoworkers picketing Delphi Flint East, known for decades as the home of AC Delco spark plugs. For the workers protesting the up coming closing, “tomorrow” was awaited with anxiety and anticipation.

Photo: futureoftheunion.com

Feb. 17, after two postponements, was to be the final day of reckoning. It was when Delphi CEO Steve Miller would, in the absence of a “consensual agreement” with Delphi’s unions, ask the bankruptcy court to throw out the union contracts. Miller had been stalling since declaring bankruptcy last October.

Wall Street bankruptcy court Judge Robert Drain outraged workers again on Feb. 10 by ruling in favor of paying Delphi’s top executives another $21 million in bonuses. Many workers predicted that their bosses, buoyed by this and other friendly rulings by the courts, would make good on their threats to take on the United Auto Workers and five other unions that represent Delphi workers.

Even members of the rank-and-file UAW powerhouse, Soldiers of Solidarity, expressed surprise when Delphi again postponed its filing of 1113 and 1114 petitions, which ask the courts to void the contracts, until March 31.

SOS has sparked militant grassroots resistance inside the plants that continues to spread. In-plant organizers report that production is down and stockpiles are up.

GM, Delphi’s former owner and main customer, is also stockpiling in anticipation of a Delphi strike. GM/Delphi workers are working overtime even as GM cries that it cannot sell cars at a profit. Some times workers don’t realize the extent of their own power, but GM/Delphi has every reason to fear an organized in-plant resistance. Inside the plant, workers can’t be replaced by scabs.

SOS is supplementing their “work to rule” strategy inside with public, in-your-face protests. The first brought 700 workers and allies out Jan. 8 to protest outside the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, followed by a Jan. 23 picket of Delphi world headquarters in Troy, Mich. The Flint protest was originally called by UAW Local 651, which represents Delphi East workers and which tried to cancel it at the last minute after pressure from the UAW International. The picket went ahead with SOS support.

Todd Jordan, a young SOS organizer from Kokomo, Ind., explained, “The over all [rank and file] consensus remains—‘you can’t strip away someone’s way of life through corporate terrorism and not expect a fight.’”

Meanwhile, the International Union of Electrical Workers—Communication Workers of Amer ica, which represents 6,000 of Delphi’s 34,000 workers, has called a strike vote for March 12.

Delphi management is trying to appear undaunted. “That is definitely the deadline. This is the first time we’re setting a hard deadline,” stated Delphi spokeswoman Claudia Piccinin. Of course, Del phi had never bothered to tell anyone that its previous deadlines were just soft deadlines.

Whether this latest round of threats turns out to be real remains to be seen. The deciding factor will not be the aggressive and destructive drive of Delphi management and their friends in black robes to break the unions. It will be the determined struggle of the workers.

To quote a chant taken up by SOS, “Not the bosses, not the state—workers will decide our fate!”