Delphi workers carried their weight, earned their keep

Thing is, Tona, is once bankruptcy is filed...it means that the company that made you all those offers and promises does not have the money to stand by them any longer. Yeah, it's a tragic thing, but the autoworkers are not the only retirees that are facing this tragedy. I personally know many places that have been forced to close their doors and the employees have been kicked out into the street after many years of service with only a pittance of what they were promised for their retirements years. Sadly...it happens. Those that have saved money, and have their homes and bills paid off are the fortunate ones in those circumstances. Not everyone in the US that falls into your same plight gets the taxpayer to bail them out and keep them getting all the benefits promised to them by a company that went bankrupt just trying to provide golden benefit packages to their employees and retirees beyond their financial capability. So how do you presume those benefits will continue to be paid for, and by whom?? Bankruptcy court changes all rules...voids all promises...and the best thing is to realize this and move on. You sound as though you're in much better financial shape that a LOT of others that have been hit hard by this economic disaster.

The blame game...how we can overlook the obvious!

The auto industry's current dilema has less to do with contracts and pensions than does the bucket seat that is under your backside.
Everyone in the Mahoning Valley driving a Honda, Toyota, KIA, Nissan, Mazda, Isuzu, etc...has their hand on the knife that's held at the auto industry's throat (and our local economy).

Go ahead and direct your contempt at the employees of GM, Delphi, and their Unions if it makes you feel better.
Reasonable folks understand that their fair wages and benefits have supplied EVERY business in the Valley with commerce for three generations. A lack of loyalty by Valley residents for the past three decades to the primary manufacturing industry in their backyard is what disappoints me the most. We felt betrayed when American companies stopped purchasing steel from our mills for cheaper overseas alternatives...yet we cruise in the latest foreign born mid-compact and point fingers at eveyone else.!

So while your cruising along Rt.224 in that foreign car and you are a retailer, own a service oriented business, or operate any other business in the area, think about where the last dollar you placed in your register came from...because there are going to be fewer of them in the future.

Zoom, Zoom

Kaet,
I am well aware bankruptcy voids contracts. Word is GM was prepared to honor all contracts, but was advised not to by Timothy Geithner, the Treasury and Auto Task Force. GM has honored the contracts of the UAW retirees. Most Delphi IUE-CWA retirees worked most of their years for GM. I wonder about the legality of honoring one unions' contract and not the others. On another note, the public assumes that because a vehicle is assembled in the USA, it is American made. Not so. The foreign companies send parts to the USA for assembly, but all profits are returned to their home country. If the American people do not start supporting American made products and jobs, we will not produce anything in our own country. How quickly we forget our history, Pearl Harbor, Viet Nam, etc. How much aid do we spend overseas and how much are we in debt to the Chinese? Please help support everyone's job, as you may be the next to lose yours.

I agree with CDHess. . What is really mindboggling to me, as a Delphi retiree I have more credited years of service with GM than some of their retiress do that are drawing full pension and health care yet mine is being terminated and turned over the PGBC. Under section 1114 of the bankruptcy laws it clearly states "that all parties must be treated equally". This is definitely not the case in this situation. On the other hand, all that Honda, Toyota, Nissan and others did for the USA was brought us Pearl Harbor. How fast some of us forget. Oh by the way, don't think your fancy import impresses me because it really doesn't. Your respect for the american flag only shows just how ignorant you really are.. A little american proverb for all of you to ponder "Your job next, keep buying imports"

Imports from Marysville, Ohio? Or a Ford Focus from outside the US? The car companies and the parts suppliers have nobody to blame but themselves for paying too much and promising benefits that were unsustainable. How fast we forget Pearl Harbor? Is 70 years too soon? My Acura doesn't impress you? Should we boycott Mercedes and VW too? Quit blaming everyone but where the blame belongs, with overpaid and under worked Delphi/GM workers.

Jenny....Your the one that's under worked and overpaid. You don't deserve the money or the benefits you get from your job. If you have health care from your employer it should be taken away.

I'm guessing about now your wondering who the hell is this guy to say that about me. Well now you know how your self righteous attitude sounds to others.

One can only hope that someone like you ends up broke in your later years because of medical bills that your health care provider refuses to pay. Hopefully you'll receive the same compassion you extend to others.

Jenny,
I'm sure that you are the hardest working person in the Mahoning Valley. Turned down your benefits from your employer because you feel it's your responcibilty to pay your own healthcare costs and retirement, to assure that the company will have no committment to you in the future. Probably told your boss that your overpaid too...and donated the portion of your pay that you feel is excessive to hungry children that work in sweatshops overseas for pennies a day in deplorable conditions. I bet your manicurist complains about the hell you put your nails through working as hard as you do...and your pilates coach says you should be a model because your body is a temple chisled from your hard labor...

Also, be assured that if Honda employed workers from the Valley, I'd tell you to support them also. The point is to support your local establishments that drive your local economy.
I'd like to see your list of workers that are paid appropriately in your eyes...how is it YOU determine the value of other's labor?

Let me ask you Valley or Die folks a question:

"If I am a restaurant owner in the Valley and I make horrible food, served watered down drinks and had bad service should the Valley people still come and spend money in my restaurant just because my income goes back into the valley?"

I'll wait for your responses (or lack there of)

If health insurance and supplement to social security aren’t worth anything to you, you can stop reading now. I figure the supplement is worth $220,000 alone for the next 13 years, that and insurance premiums we’ll have to pay because we’ve lost VEBA are worth about $30,000. Lets add them together, hmm, that’s about quarter million dollars.

If it’s not worth a ¼-Mil$ for you to get your ass off the couch, write, call, AND email your congressmen and Senators lettting them know this is important to you, then they will think it’s not. PLEASE make a nuisance of yourself, have your friends and family contact their Representatives too. Why don’t you write the letter for them, give them pre-addressed / stamped envelopes to all their Reps, so all they have to do is sign it and mail it?

HR3455 is a bill that Congressman Tim Ryan has introduced to get the IAM (and others) back into the insurance program that the UAW is going to get (THAT YOU’RE NOT). The time is NOW for YOU contact your representatives in Washington and tell them to support HR3455 AND any action that can be taken to get the supplement to Social Security that YOU are entitled to. If they don’t know what they can do, ask them to request that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (the H.E.L.P. committee) http://help.senate.gov/ look into why the IAM, the IBEW, the IUE, the Steelworkers, the Operating Engineers, their salaried workers, and others were left out of the pension supplements when most of their contracts had the same wording as the UAW contracts that they honored.

Ask them why, after the PBGC put liens on all Delphi's overseas operations last fall to get money for (your) the pension fund, did the Treasury department decide to remove the liens?

Why is GM is discriminating against splinter unions on direction of the Treasury? Why are overseas companies being protected and American workers (and taxpayers) being left out in the cold?

If you’re the type that thinks “Oh well, that’s just the way it is”, remember every time your contract was negotiated in the last 30 years, you gave something up for the promise of these benefits. Are you going to let them go without a whimper? Aren’t you a little outraged that the UAW is getting YOUR share of the supplement and VEBA?

Here’s your “to do” list.

1 tell Congressmen to support HR3455, ask Senators to introduce a senate bill (SB#) with the same goal.
2 Ask them to request that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (the H.E.L.P. committee) look into why the IAM and other unions were left out of the pension supplements when their contracts had the same wording as the UAW contracts that they honored.
3 The Ohio house delegation have all signed a letter to Treasury, ask your reps to join in any more efforts with the Ohio delegation to protect our interests.
4 do it now!

GM AND DELPHI WORKERS EARNED EVERY PENNY THAT THEY MADE

Those who criticize wouldn't have lasted a day on the job !

http://libcom.org/library/lordstown-s...

For years the motor industry has become increasingly dependent on migrant workers. These come either from abroad or from depressed areas within the same country. The migrant labour Force tends to be concentrated initially in the more unpleasant jobs, for example on the crucial assembly lines. Southern Italians, black workers in the USA, Finns, Yugoslavs, Turks, Portuguese and Spaniards are increasingly dominating the sharp end of motor manufacture. While this is an important fact, we do not share the divisive view - put forward by various maoid(maoist)tendencies - that immigrants are the 'new vanguard' of the working class. While it is true that on some issues migrant workers are in the lead, in other cases this is far from being the case. The real common denominator to the new types of struggle we will be describing is that it is the production workers-those on the line- who are showing the way, and doing this irrespective of their country of origin.

Sometimes, instead of using migrant workers, car companies move the factories-particularly assembly operations-to areas with high unemployment, or more importantly to regions with relatively low levels of job organisation. But this is just a palliative. It has not solved the main 'problem', namely that workers are less and less willing to accept the man-killing work pace. The resistance to production is shown by the universal tendency for an increasing proportion of strikes to be on issues other than wages, issues such as speed-up, victimisation of militants, and manning of machines .

Another way this tendency is expressing itself is in a very high, and escalating, rate of labour turnover According to official US Government statistics, workers in 1966 were staying an average of 4.2 years in each job. By 1969 this had fallen to 3.9 years. For young people under the age of 24 the average length of stay was 0.7 years (see 'The Prison Factory', New Left Review, May-June 1972). These figures have continued to drop.

Perception? GM does not make a better car then Honda, Toyota or VW. It is your perception that they do. I have currently owned my GM product for under a year and I have already have had it in the shop at least 10 times (brakes twice). I owned a VW for 4 years and it was in the shop ONCE. My spouse drives a Honda (4 years) and it has only been in for brakes twice.

When I take my vehicles into my mechanic he tells me to look around his lot of cars waiting to be fixed and asks me what brands of cars I don't see... the answer was Hondas and Toyotas.

I tried to do my part to help the valley's GM workers but why should I contribute my hard earned dollars to a crap product.

I will not eat at that restaurant again.