More on Delphi Demise

    And this Delphi mess is just going to get worse, as the Wall Street Journal article below reports (subscription required so I've given you a snippet). I know I have a particular interest in this as a UAW member. But, this is yet another example of (a) the insanity of the lack of a national health insurance plan--which, as I've been ranting about for many, many months, has to be taken on not just as a moral issue but as a competitive issue for every company in the country--and (b) how workers lose their pensions thanks to company's using the bankruptcy law...though the Delphi CEO makes a very not-credible claim that the pension plan will not be jettisoned, particularly since, as I pointed out last month, this guy bases his whole business strategy on buying up ailing companies and dumping their pension funds to help the balance sheet.

Delphi CEO Sees Major Downsizing in Bankruptcy Company
Hasn't Decided On Federal Pension Bailout;
GM Faces Financial Risks
By JEFFREY MCCRACKEN and JOHN D. STOLL
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 10, 2005;
Page A1
DETROIT -- Delphi Corp., the big auto-parts supplier that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Saturday, plans to shut down or sell off a substantial part of its U.S. operations, but is not yet sure if it will ask the federal government to take over its pension obligations, its chief executive said in an interview.

"We have not decided what we will do," with the Delphi pension plan, said Chairman and CEO Robert S. "Steve" Miller. "We want to try and create a company that accommodates our retirees without having [the pension plan] terminated and turned over" to the government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., he said. The company plan is underfunded by as much as $4.3 billion.

The filing in bankruptcy court in New York by Delphi, the largest U.S. auto supplier, is the clearest sign yet that the U.S. auto industry -- and its unionized workers -- are moving toward the sort of slash-and-burn restructuring that was forced on airline and steel workers by major bankruptcies in those industries.

Besides potential disruptions in auto supplies to manufacturers, the filing could force major concessions on Detroit's largest union, the United Auto Workers, while loading additional costs onto already-strapped auto makers. Especially vulnerable is General Motors Corp., the former parent of Delphi, which guaranteed the pensions and benefits of some Delphi hourly workers when it spun the company off in 1999.

Mr. Miller, a 63-year-old turnaround specialist, led Bethlehem Steel Corp. through bankruptcy and handed that company's pension plan to the PBGC. The filing Saturday came after Mr. Miller failed to negotiate a multibillion-dollar bailout plan with GM, Delphi's largest customer, and major wage-and-benefit concessions from the UAW.

In the interview, Mr. Miller said Delphi's troubles will require the company to divest, consolidate or close "a substantial segment" of its 45 manufacturing sites in the U.S. and Canada, which employ 49,000 workers. He said he also plans to renegotiate the contracts and retirement plans of Delphi's 33,000 union workers and 12,000 retirees.

The filing left plenty of questions unanswered. Delphi, of Troy, Mich., did not detail which or how many U.S. plants it hopes to get rid of. The company previously identified 11 U.S. plants that were unprofitable and could be closed or sold.

In addition, Delphi said it would seek in court to terminate health and life-insurance benefits for its retirees in mid-December. But one question to be answered in court is how much of that GM could be forced to pick back up.

Comments

[Annfromdc]

Jonathan - I couldn't agree more about the need for national health insurance - and my sources also tell me Medicare for All is a more saleable tag than single-payer. As a fellow member of the National Writers Union, UAW, I know that free lancers can't get health insurance worth a damn and never will. Whatever NWU has found for parts of our membership will disappear sooner or later. And Delphi is just the latest company to have financial problems at least in part because competitors in other countries don't have to pay for their workers' health care. And then there are all the employers whose insurance is too expensive for their workers. And then there's WalMart. My question is, who is leading a grassroots campaign for universal, affordable, quality health care available to everybody on the same terms? Or is Physicians for a National Health Plan a voice in the wilderness?

[John A. Joslin]

" Wilderness " is an apt description of our current social landscape. As a past UAW member myself ( currently a Building Trades union member ), I was interested in Mr. Gettlefinger's comment here in Detroit yesterday about the Delphi situation....( paraphrase) ...he wishes..." that the people who live in the gated communities would take a good look at where this country is headed..."
A good many people in "gated communities " got there " easily YEARS later and only AFTER they had received G.I. Bill education benefits & G.I. mortgage assistance in the first place. ( simply a matter of turning over your home a few times in the meantime.... ) In other words , widely distributed economic benefits were a key to lasting prosperity for millions of people in this country. Those families & their children's families show the effects of that federally administered prosperity to this day !
The fact that Physicians for a National Health Plan can be said to be wandering in the desert is due to the fact that few ( labor leaders included) seem to remember WHAT was done BEFORE in this country and what , therefore , could be done now ; Delphi or NO Delphi. In that light ," people who live in gated communities " can partly be seen as living reminders of the wisdom embodied in universal entitlements like National Health care ! - J.Joslin (still striving, waiting for my gate in M-town )

[Bill Pearson]

To answer your question on who annfromdc, here is a cut and paste link http://www.nchc.org/ The National Coalition on Health Care is a fairly sizeable group of folks supporting dramatic change in how we care for people in this country. While they have no single solution, they are fairly aggressive and open minded as to anyone or thing that solves the health care crisis we are in.

[Ty]

Before the split, the New Unity Partnership and the Change to Win Coalition consistently advocated for the AFL-CIO to take the lead on a campaign for universal healthcare. Here's an excerpt from the "Restoring the American Dream" proposal:

"Labor must take the lead in a campaign to unify the broadest number of working people, capture the imagination of the nation, and build a broad coalition to win affordable, quality health care and retirement security for all. National health care is the central jobs and economic security issue of our era. Social Security and defined benefit pension plans are under assault. The ideas of health and retirement security are at the heart of the American Dream. The labor movement needs to build a mass campaign to win affordable health care and retirement security for all."

As a former SEIU staffer, I know that there have been conversations in the international and some of the locals for years about leading a movement (possibly culminating with a general strike) for universal health care. (As the largest health care workers' union, SEIU is in a uniquely good position to lead this fight.)

To their credit, the AFL-CIO and many member unions have adopted more or less the same policy position as the CTW, but there's one thing missing: a serious committment to, as the above proposal reads, "unify the broadest number of working people" in pursuit of this policy. As long as the wage-and-benefit packages of airline workers, auto workers, steelworkers, supermarket workers, etc, remain isolated exceptions to the general rule of low wages and meager benefits for working people all over the country and around the world, they will continue to disappear. These tiny islands of privilege will continue to be overwhelmed by the category-5 hurricane that is contemporary capitalism. As long as the UAW doesn't organize Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, BMW and the rest in the South, as long as the UFCW doesn't organize Wal-Mart, as long as nobody builds a truly international organizing and collective bargaining program to raise standards worldwide, all of our benefits will be vulnerable.

Don't get me wrong, I think the UAW and other unions facing massive concessions should lead militant actions in defense of their hard-won standards. After all, those standards were achieved through militant action decades ago, and SEIU and UNITE-HERE have shown recently that militant action can preserve, and even win for the first time, fully employer-paid family health insurance for traditionally low-wage service-sector workers. Maybe sit-down strikes at Delphi would help kick-start a large scale movement for universal healthcare.

But it's worth noting that SEIU and UNITE-HERE's recent victories have come in the context of an overall organizing strategy designed to put them on the offensive, while other recent fights (the Southern California supermarket strike, all the airlines, the UAW at GM and Delphi) have been purely defensive. In order to fulfill the vision "affordable health care and retirement security for all" the strategies demonstrated by SEIU and UNITE-HERE in limited segments of their industries must be put into action all across our global economy. That's what Change to Win is all about.