Good morning, all...

Here's an interesting little article that I found in the Buffalo News this morning (OK, right now it's barely morning, but I like to sleep in on Saturdays. Sue me).


Delphi plan would save only 6,000 hourly jobs
By JERRY ZREMSKI
NEWS NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
5/27/2006

NEW YORK - Delphi Corp.'s bankruptcy reorganization plan would eliminate all but 6,000 of its U.S. hourly employees. The plan foreshadows job cuts even at the eight plants the company plans to keep open, such as the facility in Lockport that now includes 3,000 factory workers among its 3,800-member work force.

Testifying in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Friday, Delphi executive Mark R. Weber acknowledged that while the company plans to cut its salaried staff by only 37 percent, it plans to reduce its U.S. hourly work force from 33,000 to 6,000.

The number of U.S. salaried employees - 9,000 - will exceed hourly workers because the company's top managers will remain in America.

"In addition, we'll have that number of [salaried] employees in the U.S. because they will be engineering products for manufacture all around the world," said Weber, Delphi's executive vice president for operations.

Delphi has been ramping up its overseas manufacturing operations for years, and unions have contended its reorganization proposal is aimed at shifting the company into a low-wage offshore employer.

Lindsey Williams, a company spokesman, conceded earlier this week that the Lockport plant would have to be restructured even though the facility is set to remain open.

Already, Weber acknowledged, Delphi has 135,000 workers outside the United States, compared with 45,000 in America.

That overseas focus would grow under Delphi's reorganization plan, which calls for closing or selling 21 of its 29 U.S. facilities.

Delphi has contended it needs freedom from its labor deals because those agreements would hamstring the company as it attempts to close facilities.

But labor lawyers pointed out that the company has been able shrink in recent years despite those union contracts.

Delphi labor negotiator Darrell Kidd acknowledged the United Auto Workers' work force at Delphi has shrunk from 43,000 to 23,317 since the company was spun off from General Motors Corp. in 1999.

And Thomas M. Kennedy, a lawyer for the International Union of Electronic, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers/Communications Workers of America, pointed out that his union's Delphi work force had fallen from 15,837 to 8,400.

"And all that was occurring under the current labor agreements, right?" Kennedy asked, prompting Kidd to agree.

Kidd noted that most of the job cuts that have occurred in recent years came about because of routine retirements and resignations, along with buyout programs the unions agreed to at particular plants.

"Could you have put those attrition programs in place without entering negotiations and giving something up?" asked Delphi lawyer John K. Lyons.

"No," Kidd replied.

Meanwhile, Delphi's unions continued their efforts to show that Delphi's reorganization plan favors management over labor. Under tough questioning, Weber conceded that when the company gives $98 million in bonuses to salaried employees, some of it could go to managers at plants that are losing money.

And after Weber said Delphi Chief Executive Officer Steve Miller had volunteered to cut his salary from $1.5 million to $1, Kennedy noted that Miller had received a $3 million signing bonus when he joined Delphi in July 2005.

"How much of that has he given back?" Kennedy asked.

"None that I am aware of," Webber replied.

Delphi's unions have vowed to strike if Delphi wins the right to break its union contracts, and a strike could cripple Delphi's main customer, General Motors.

But Judge Robert D. Drain is not expected to issue a decision in the case until late June. At least two more days of hearings are set on the issue, starting next Friday.


e-mail: jzremski@buffnews.com


Hmmm...that sounds promising, now doesn't it. Bleh.

Dawn