Delphi workers ‘negotiating’ at gunpoint

Auto and auto-parts executives gathered in Traverse City, Mich., Aug. 11 for a conference titled “The Auto World Future: Round or Flat?” While these executives no doubt believe that “money makes the world go ‘round,” their real agenda is to flatten the world of wages, pensions and benefits. Urging companies to set up low-wage sweatshops in Asia, American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. CEO Richard Dauch proclaimed, “If you can’t handle the medicine, go ahead and die.”

The Detroit News reported that “venture capitalists” came to Traverse City “shopping for investment targets in the form of struggling auto parts makers.” Bankrupt Delphi was no doubt at the top of their shopping list.

That same day, putting the conference agenda into practice, Delphi executives were back on Wall Street, still pressing to have their union contracts nullified. The hear ings were delayed another six days after Delphi restated its bogus intention to reach “a consensual agreement” with the United Auto Workers and the other Delphi unions. As of Aug. 17 the hearings were delayed another month. If Delphi CEO Steve Miller was sincere about wanting to negotiate, wouldn’t he withdraw the Section 1113-1114 petitions to trash the contracts outright? He has sort of a “gunboat diplomacy” attitude towards bargaining.

Indeed, what more can (or will) the UAW give up? A two-tier wage structure has been in place for four years, with the lower tier maxing out at over ten dollars per hour less than those hired before September 2003. Most of the older, upper-tier workers have either taken early retirement buyouts or “flowed back” to former parent General Motors. That is, they have transferred back and are working directly for GM again. This has left Delphi with a drastically reduced workforce of lower paid workers and the right to run the plants with temporary workers whose wages are even lower and who receive no benefits.

All of these workers worked many hard years at GM before the Delphi spinoff. While GM has agreed to maintain their health-care coverage, these workers’ pension credits remain with bankrupt Delphi. “We never agreed to sign away our pensions to Delphi,” states Gregg Shotwell, organizer of Soldiers of Solidarity, a group representing Delphi workers that led a heroic in-plant resistance to Delphi’s assault. “Our retirement was hijacked.” Under these most unfavorable circumstances workers are seeing no alternative to taking these buyouts and hoping for the best.

The situation naturally lends itself to profound demoralization and despair. Yet the workers are not vanquished. While the executives were scheming in Michigan and New York, picket lines were in motion in both states. Delphi’s second-largest union, the International Union of Elec trical workers/Communication Workers of America, picketed outside the bankruptcy hearing, while SOS managed to bring out dozens of its members to picket Delphi World Headquarters.

If Delphi flattens the pensions, the workers may still have an opportunity to show that struggle makes the world go ‘round.