The Delphi Offer (Here it is)

[Ghost Dog]

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=1...8R2A&refer=home

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Delphi Corp., a bankrupt auto-parts supplier, has offered United Auto Workers union members a payment of $50,000 each in exchange for a 35 percent pay cut.

The offer is contingent on General Motors Corp., Delphi's former parent, helping pay the wages of Delphi workers, according to a March 24 contract proposal obtained by Bloomberg. Hourly pay for Delphi workers would drop initially to $22 and then to $16.50 on Sept. 3, 2007. If GM doesn't help out, wages for long-time Delphi employees would fall to as low as $12. Health-care benefits for retirees would be eliminated.

Delphi's UAW locals received the offer today, three days before Delphi Chief Executive Officer Steve Miller's deadline for an agreement. Miller has said he will ask a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge to cancel contracts on March 31 if there's no new accord. The UAW has pledged to strike if the court allows the contracts to be thrown out.

``If today's offer is what the International UAW gives the locals for ratification, my people are going to be standing out there with picket signs,'' said George Anthony, bargaining chairman of UAW Local 292 at a Delphi electrical components plant in Kokomo, Indiana.

GM, Delphi's biggest customer, hasn't yet agreed to subsidize the supplier's wages, the proposal said.

Paul Krell, a UAW spokesman, said the union has received Delphi's offer. He declined comment. Lindsey Williams, a spokesman for Troy, Michigan-based Delphi and Jerry Dubrowski, a spokesman for Detroit-based GM, had no comment.

Staggered

Under Delphi's proposal, wages would fall to $22 on July 3 at the plants it wants to keep. Pay would drop again to the $16.50 level 14 months later. Hourly wages would remain at $22 at the plants Delphi wants to sell or close by Dec. 31, 2007. The union would negotiate with new owners on wages.

Miller, who took the Troy, Michigan-based company into bankruptcy Oct. 8, originally sought wages as low as $9.50 an hour.

``Delphi's new offer is far from a settlement, but it is a move away from the company's initial rhetoric, which did little but inflame a tough situation,'' said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

The proposal would require workers to pay up to $3,000 a year per family for health care and eliminate a ``Jobs Bank'' program that pays laid-off employees when they're not working.

It would also remove automatic wage increases to protect workers from inflation, abolish the union's right to strike, and take away restrictions against selling or closing factories and shipping work to outside suppliers.

Buyouts

Last week, Delphi, GM and the Detroit-based UAW agreed to incentives designed to eliminate tens of thousands of jobs at both companies. The incentives include a bonus payment of up to $35,000 for 13,000 Delphi workers who are already eligible to retire. Another 5,000 of the supplier's employees would be able to return to GM.

If GM agrees to help, Delphi would match the automaker's offer of buyout payments to workers who would quit, start receiving pensions, and relinquish their claim to health care and all other benefits. The buyouts would be $140,000 for workers with 10 or more years of experience, and $70,000 for workers with less than 10 years, the offer said.

[Ghost Dog]

abolish the union's right to strike, and take away restrictions against selling or closing factories and shipping work to outside suppliers.

Thats a real ugly bit there. we'll see what the people vote.

[Guest Josh]

Aint gonna happen. There's no way the Union is going to give up it's right to strike to protect it's own jobs.

No sir!

[Northstar]

Aint gonna happen. There's no way the Union is going to give up it's right to strike to protect it's own jobs.

No sir!

What if the made DPH alter the contract so that they still had the ability to strike. Do you think they'd accept then?

[Guest Josh]

What if the made DPH alter the contract so that they still had the ability to strike. Do you think they'd accept then?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yessir. Because they would still have the $50,000 "buy down" offer in front of them, then can still retire at anytime they chose to. They would say it's good because it would create jobs for guys like you and me albeit at a lower wage we'd still be paying into their retirement.

Remove the strike clause and they have a deal. The UAW will not take away their right to stop the lines to save their jobs. It won't happen.