Delphi retirees benefit cuts could kill jobs: YSU study

More than 1,740 salaried retirees working for smaller local companies have lost their pension and health care benefits. What makes the Delphi group so special. They may finally have to pay for their health care, like everybody else. Get on with your lives.

Hey Sick, These people for the most part took and stayed at Packard because of the benefits,health and pension. Now,as they reach the age when they need it most,it's gone. Not so for the people who never even worked,they have their benefits paid for by the same people you condemn. If the poor or lazy can't pay,they have nothing to lose. If someone has worked for assets,they'll get sued for those assets. Your most stupid comment is "like everyone else". Like government workers? Like school teachers? Like a large portion of the country who have paid for health care? Get on with your sorry life,hater.

Hey Borylie

So if you're not a Delphi worker, government worker or school teacher you catogorize the rest as "the poor or lazy that can't pay" Not true. You guys think that you have some special right to your health and pension benefits above and beyond the rest of the many professionals and blue collar workers that have lost theirs. Get on with your sorry life,whiner.

The study doesn't appear to present findings relating to one group being more "special" than another; it is a numbers assessment on a specific group. Ask yourselves: why is that difficult to understand and why does it elicit this type of response?

Hey Sicko,Please explain your "like everybody else".

Sick....Those people worked their lives for that pension and health benefits. How would it be if you worked your life and made all your house payments and after your house was paid off the bank came to you and said: "the banks in financial trouble so the house isn't yours it's ours?"

The mentality of "I'm getting screwed so everyone else should too" escapes me.

Sicko,one more thing. It is a special right and it was called a legal right,trumped by a bankruptcy law. Delphi can now go back into business and have the chance to be a success. These Delphi workers,many past their working prime,can only hope they can afford to pay for their insurance and not become dependent on the government as the government hopes. The Treasury Dep't.(Geithner) declined to bail out the Delphi retirees,figuring they would soon support their health plan rather than go without health insurance.

Suggest everyone review why Delphi filed for Chapter 11. "Delphi took this action to preserve the value of the company and complete its transformation plan designed to resolve Delphi's existing legacy issues and resulting high cost structure of it U.S. operations and "The U.S. legacy issues and resulting high-cost structure are driving the need to restructure; therefore the filing is limited to U.S. subsidiaries.....Delphi's overall liquidity includes more than $1 billion on hand outside of the U.S., which Delphi does not plan to use to fund U.S. operations". In short Delphi is using a business plan mapped out years ago to be a predominate global company. Legacy issues are people and their cost who Delphi legally (not morally) can, and did, eliminate to protect the shareholders. This is common place business and not Mahoning / Trumbull county directed. Special treatment for pension and health care is not in order for one group based upon a community of dis-belief that it is happening to them. Delphi's promise was legally wiped out. Work to change the federal laws for the future and no more bailouts (handouts).

http://delphi.com/pdf/reorg/GeneralQA...

Agreed,as long as we don't bailout (handouts) the lazy and uneducated,or the ones that continually make the wrong choices. I'd much rather help out the senior citizens and those that worked for at least 30 years,than the ones that haven't contributed one darn thing. Quit thinking that bailouts are only for businesses.

More needs to be done to stop the transfer of US wealth to other countries by any means . The plundering of America does cause pain and has real victims .

Hey Boryle "like everybody else" means if you worked for a company for 10, 20 or 30 years and they go bankrupt don't expect to be treated differently because you worked for Delphi. It doesn't matter if you worked for a company with 1700 employees or 10 employees it's still the same It's nobody's fault except maybe management that couldn't see the forest through the trees. The Delphi workers act as if they have special rights over "everybody else" hard working people
who worked their whole life and made all their house payments. Delphi workers got to take the blinders off and look to the future, not behind, and get off their butts and get a job. Life is tough. Deal with it.

Hey Sicko, I don't believe for a second that Delphi workers nor I think that other employees from other companies,large or small,don't deserve what they worked for and were legally promised. I don't even know where you came up with that idea other than to try and give your lame post some creditability. Please tell these 60 to 70 year old people in an area of 14% unemployment how to get a job. This article was about Delphi and it's affect on the area because of it's large number of retirees,not other companies and it's employees. Otherwise I would of written about those folks as well.

I think there is little sympathy for the Delphi workers for a few reasons. 1. Many got those jobs through friends and family connections and many valley residents tried and couldn't get hired there. 2. When you make way more money than most valley residents, and then wind up in the poor house or expect people making less than Delphi workers did to pay higher taxes because the Delphi workers spent every cent they made, most people are not too sympathetic to that cause. 3. Delphi entered bankruptcy (a constitutionally guaranteed right) mostly because of the costs that the Delphi workers extracted from the company. In effect, they were the cause of its demise and their own lost benefits.

Now, I suspect someone will tell me how jealous I am. I'm not jealous and make a good living as an accountant. I also fund my own 401K and save a good portion of my wages for future health care costs.

Jenny....How about your company accessing your 401K and bank accounts and taking that money back? That's what Delphi did. They accessed the retirement and health care accounts of their employees and took back what they had earned.

What kind of a loss do you think the Delphi executives felt throughout that bankruptcy and reorganization? They got bonuses for screwing those workers.

Chan,since your a loon I'll make this quick and I won't respond to anything you may attempt to justify your rant. How do you know that they spent every cent they made? You don't have a clue. I know many,many people from Delphi that contributed to their PSP (Personal Savings Plan) and at the max of !0%. Glad you tooted your own horn,I hope all your 401 goes to the people who don't work. It's coming.

I and most of the Valley agree with Jenny Chan. She couldn't have said it better. The Delphi workers were overpaid for the jobs they did because if and when they go out and try to find one now at most it would be half of what they were over paid. The market will dictate what they get paid. Sorry.

Cambridge, those weren't 401K's that Delphi had. They were Delphi accounts that were often underfunded and supposed to be for retiree health care and pensions. That's the beauty of 401K's. The money is mine NOW and FOREVER. No underfunded account to be beholden to. No company that might file bankruptcy because they are extorted by unions that cause the company to lose money.

borylie, yeah, I'm a loon and yet you're the whacko that thinks peoples 401K's are going to be taxed at 100% to pay for the non workers. Is Obama a socialist too? Maybe he's a Muslim and his birth certificate is fake? How can you type with the straight jacket on?

Sicko,That was some quick polling you did. Unless you know that the 70% democrats of the Valley are lemmings and of course would agree with you two. Since you know that they were overpaid,(how do you know that?) can you tell the rest of us who are currently overpaid.

Chan, Couldn't help myself. Your takes on Obama tell me that those questions are also weighing on your mind. With my tongue. How do you know they spent every cent?

Nope, borylie, they aren't weighing on my mind. Only right wing whackos with little ability to think without Beck or Limbaugh telling them what to say even remotely think about birth certificates, Muslims, and 100% taxation.

How do I know they spent every cent? Because they are whining that they are losing a small portion of their retirements or health care. If they are over 65, then Medicare covers most of their health care. They also get social security. If they are under 65, then they retired too early and started to milk those pensions far too early which caused the mess in the first place. The deleveraging continues and will bleed into many other arenas too.

Chan,You know they spent every cent because they're whining? Wow. As a proud right wing wacko I have to go listen to my taped Beck and Limbaugh shows. Whenever you lefty loons look like fools on these comment sites,you wish you had a Beck or a Limbaugh to look to,for common sense answers and ideas. Who do you look to,No Hope Valley,Sicko or Cambridge?

We are talking about Americans that worked their whole life in the USA, making products that said "Made in USA". Take care of the hard working Americans that may live next door to you, regardless of whether they got their job because of a relative or "who the knew". A National Health Care Program should be given first to people who worked and have their 40 quarters in with Social Security. These people should be covered first, then the government employees, regardless of Federal/State/Local affiliation. And lastly, the deadbeat non-workers that have been sponging off the worker-bees all their life. Seems to me that we're taking care of the wrong people that should be last in the pecking order instead of first.

LostPatrol,Ditto x 1000.

it amazes me the mind set of some people in the mahoning valley. they gloat because some people are losing what they they were told they would get after working 30 or more years.

how many saw the articles in the vindicator about vmi and vmx. two companies that want to open for business in youngstown. both of these companies are going to get tax breaks from the state and the city. as far as i know, neither of these companies filed for bankruptcy. as far as i know they are both profitable companies.

where is the outrage about this? there was much outrage about bailouts for the big wall street banks and the auto companies.

come on people. don't you think fair is fair?

Many of these workers have put in 30 years or more of their lives paying medical care for those on welfare, illegal aliens, and most all politicians who have the best health care money can afford. Would it not be more fair that people who have worked all their lives get FREE health care after paying for everyone elses?? Posted by Jarad