Delphi Seeks Permission To Eliminate Retiree Health Care (to about 15,000 Delphi salaried retirees)

[Purveyor]

Source: Detroit Free Press

Delphi Corp. is asking a bankruptcy judge for permission to stop paying health care and life insurance benefits to its salaried retirees, according to a filing Wednesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

The Troy automotive parts supplier has been struggling to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has launched a series of new cost-cutting measures to help the company attract the financing it needs.

A hearing on the matter before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain is scheduled for Feb. 24.

The move would end health insurance benefits to about 15,000 Delphi salaried retirees, most of whom rely on Delphi for medical, dental and vision coverage. Other workers in that group who don’t receive benefits, would lose a 1% 401(k) match.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20090205/BUSINESS01/90205096/Delphi+seeks+permission+to+eliminate+retiree+health+care

[MaineDem]

1. Man, this sucks!

These people retired with a promise of health care. It's a debt the company should pay.

[Lucky Luciano]

7. That is the trouble bankruptcy....it protects the bankrupt from its creditors

In this case the creditors are real people with real needs and they are getting fucked over. Hopefully, the retirees can keep what they earned.

[John Q. Citizen]

18. Those are not creditors. Those are stake holder employess.. There is no equity and no interest.

There is however, the principle that employees are first in line because the alternative is slavery.

This is the same thing as asking the court to approve not making payroll. It should be unheard of.

[GinaMaria]

15. it was a benefit they promised as part of the entire compensation

package for work. The people did the work. It's not fair to decide to pay them less than the agreed upon terms once the work is finished. OTOH, they are on the brink of financial collapse.

[williesgirl]

2. This judge should say "no". We have to be able to count on promises made before we retire. Period.

rec'd

[SpiralHawk]

3. REPUBLICON 'family values' strike again

eom

[HopeHoops]

4. Bastards, bastards, bastards! - no offense intended to those born out of wedlock, mind you.

[jody]

5. Makes sense if Obama & Dem congress are going to fund universal health care as promised. n/t

[nyc 4 Biden]

6. How the hell is it legal to take any compensation away from retirees?

They've already earned them!?!?!?

WTF!

[CrispyQ]

8. This is theft, pure & simple.

Benefits for retirement was part of their compensation over the years that they worked. They accepted lower wages in exchange for health benefits during their retirement years.

How much longer will the middle class tolerate being fucked?

[robinlynne]

13. Exactly!

[ejpoeta]

9. imagine what universal healthcare would do to help a lot of companies!!

i know. it's the big s word. socialism. and yet, eventually, when everyone loses their healthcare or access to it.... won't we all end up on medicaid or something anyway!! i mean, we all pay for the uninsured NOW, don't we!! the arguments against a single payer system just don't stand up. providing a single payer system would take a big load off of businesses and that would help out immensely is in our struggling economy, wouldn't it!! Personally, i find it reprehensible that people who did their jobs with a promise of healthcare could have it stripped now through no fault of their own. but it seems to me that universal or single payer healthcare would help alleviate this pressure placed on businesses.

[jtrockville]

17. Health insurance is a HUGE $ burden for companies who hire US workers

[groundloop]

10. It's probably legal

Because the salaried employees didin't work under any contract. Legal, yes. Ethical, hell no.

[dysfunctional press]

11. they didn't?

where did you get the info?

[denverbill]

12. Bankruptcy should invalidate the contracts of the company's officers automatically.

Including former officers.

They have their health care benefits and pensions guaranteed for life by outside corporations. Instead, the people who made millions every year in salary and benefits, the ones who should not need any more money, who made enough in one year for any of their employees to retire happily on, THEY are the ones with the guaranteed benefits.

They should be the first to lose their benefits in any bankruptcy.

[Journeyman]

14. Anyone in a corporate pension plan who believes it's inviolate is willfully blind . . .

those plans have been plundered since at least the mid-'70s (that's when I first heard of it), tapped for everything from R&D cash to debt payment.

I withdrew from the corporate world back when I realized those who run it are no friends of mine and all the wishing in the world wasn't going to change that fact. I realized 25 years ago corporate America could not sustain the promises it had made to previous generations and that my generation would have to do things differently.

Those who stay in the corporate world, hopeful they'll reap its benefits, are taking a crap shoot, so far as I'm concerned. Too many unscrupulous business-folk chasing too few dollars and all the while the worker is kept at a distinct disadvantage.

The only thing "free" about our market system is the freedom corporations enjoy to rid themselves of bothersome employees whenever they choose. It's a crime that's not considered a crime. Come to think of it, there is only one crime in corporate capitalism: it's a crime to allow the wealthy to lose their money. Beyond that, everything's fair game.

So I don't know what the answers are but they won't be found among the Corpos. As a society, we can extract what we need from the Corpos but they won't provide it freely. It's like depending on a Corporation's beneficence to reduce pollution and clean up after itself -- it isn't going to happen. Therefore, the sooner we look away from them for anything other than a tax base the better off we'll all be. As has been said many times, We need universal health care and we need it now.

So forgive me if my anger doesn't mount to an accepted level, and I don't cry out reflexively against the injustice of this situation, a situation whose denouement has been foretold for decades. For you see, for me, anger was trumped by common sense ages ago, when I took the path to watch out for myself without the intercession of a corporate overseer.

[prolesunited]

16. They already raped steel industry employees in this way

My dad is lucky he escaped this or he would have lost his home by now to pay for health care.

[katty]

19. more of this come, much more (like we haven't had enough already)