Posted on 12/11/2005 11:18:40 AM PST by Brilliant
KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) -- At least a thousand people rallied in central Indiana against steep wage cuts proposed by auto parts manufacturer Delphi Corp., which has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Workers say the proposed cuts -- from $27 an hour to between $10 and $12.50 -- are unfair, especially as Delphi has given bonuses to managers and other executives. United Auto Workers officials have said a strike against Delphi appears increasingly likely.
"To the Delphi workers here and everyone else, there are 380,000 union workers in the state of Indiana who will march in this battle with you," said Indiana AFL-CIO President Ken Zeller. "You are not alone."
Workers carried signs that read, "Delphi cooks the books/Workers get BURNED."
Delphi spokesman Lindsey Williams declined comment.
One in three jobs in Kokomo is tied to manufacturing, and the Howard County community is poised to take a heavy blow as its two big employers -- Delphi and DaimlerChrysler -- eye layoffs or pay cuts.
Delphi has been operating under bankruptcy protection since October and is seeking to cut hourly workers' wages by more than 60 percent.
Based in Troy, Mich., Delphi has about 6,000 employees in Indiana, most of whom work at the company's Electronics & Safety Division headquartered in Kokomo.
The company was founded in 1999 as a spin-off from General Motors. With 185,000 workers worldwide, Delphi is the nation's largest auto supplier.
You've nailed it.
Whenever somebody starts yapping about wages not being high enough, I like asking them to please start their own company and show the rest of us capitalist pigs how it is done.
No takers so far.
The company agreed to pay wages that were non-sustainable. Now they are trying to get out of it. I don't know anyone that can take a 60% pay cut. The company reneged on its contract, so the workers are well within their rights to strike.
Don't waste your time with people who think they know it all.
I did. And I had two young kids at the time too.
For those Delphi workers who cannot absorb a 60% pay cut, why don't they take their skills to another company? Surely, if their labor is worth as much as they think it is, they would have no problem gaining employment elsewhere.
But maybe, just maybe, they were overpaid and that is why they can't find anybody else willing to employ them at those wages.
I agree. Look, I dislike unions as much as the next guy - but a lot of folks are going to be homeless, either way this goes. That may be a necessary thing, but I take no joy in it.
I don't take joy in it. I don't think that resisting these cuts will help, though. They will just make it worse.
The much bigger question though is whether we're going to let the unions do the same thing to GM and Ford. So far, it looks like the answer is "Yes."
They will make $10 to $12 on unemployment. And they can find jobs paying that in a fewmonths. They have nothing to lose.
Romney was a "merchant banker" that was in the process of consolidating two label makers, iirc.
Ted got his boys to bring out Ohio workers to harass Romney.
The unions are not killing the industry, rather slowly milking it until the end. They know very well that China, et al, are their demise.
I'm sure the $27.50 includes health, welfare and retirement benefits. When I worked for a railroad, the company paid as much as 23.72% of my gross earnings into the retirement system. I paid in 12.52% into the retirement system. The health insurance cost me nothing but cost the RR's plenty. It wasn't until 2003 that hourly employees had to pay any portion the insurance costs.
The nonunion auto companies don't have any difficulty doing business in the US. Only the unionized American companies do.
"The company reneged on its contract, so the workers are well within their rights to strike."
I don't think anyone is arguing whether they have the right to strike or not.
Bankruptcy is a legally sanctioned way to reneg on legal, binding contracts. You can't force a business to stay open when it can't meet all of its contractual obligations.
The ONLY way for Delphi to stay open as a viable business is for these drastic cuts to be made. It's going to ruin a lot of lives and communities.
In one way, I suppose, there is logic to striking a bankrupt company - There is no assurance that Delphi will be managed any better in the future (even with drastic wage cuts) that in the past, so why not just force it to close and let people get on with their lives?
I don't agree with that logic, but I can see how some people would think that way, especially if they are living paycheck to paycheck before a pay cut.
I was under the impression that the $27.50 was before benefits. Benefits are usually almost another third of the hourly wages.
I guess the workers feel the company has screwed them out of what has been promised. It has caused them to have to sell their houses, move, and possibly has put a real bind on their kids' college educations. They feel that their lives have been shut down, so it seems fair to make sure the company doesn't survive. I don't totally agree with that way of thinking, but I can totally see where they are coming from. Also, I live about 25 miles from Delphi, so I can see what it's going to do to the communities. That makes me a bit biased, I would guess.
Personally I hope these workers do strike and that Delphi immediately shuts its plant.
L
Oh, I have no doubt that they were overpaid. But with that kind of a paycut, they're looking to lose 80% or more of their workforce.
Maybe that's what they wanted. There are drastic cuts that wouldn't have been so impossible to live with, though. Going down to $16 per hour would have been a 40% cut that would have allowed some degree of possibility of staying on board.
As you sad, you stayed on. I don't know how many others would.
It was my wife that got laid off. She made about $60K to my $40K at the time. We clipped a lot of coupons, stayed home a lot and generally cut our expenses to the point where I actually started looked forward to a Domino's pizza on a Friday night (it was one of our only indulgences during those times).
What we didn't do was sit around and complain about the "unfairness" of our situation. My career started taking off around that time and my wife eventually found an even better position.
"proposed cuts -- from $27 an hour to between $10 and $12.50 -- are unfair,"
$10 an hour sounds a lot more reasonable for the type of unskilled labor they do than $27 an hour. They can have a job that pays $10/hour or no job at all.
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