Auto union’s complaint: Delphi exec bonuses make it tough to sell wage cuts

Delphi wants its 35,000 hourly workers in the US to accept a 60 percent wage cut and sharply reduced pensions and health benefits. At the same time, it is asking the bankruptcy judge to approve a “Key Employee Compensation Program” that will provide 600 corporate executives with more than $400 million in cash and other perks.

In public statements, the UAW has denounced Delphi for bringing “third world conditions” to America’s workers. Union President Ronald Gettelfinger has charged Delphi CEO Robert Miller with seeking to create a country “sharply divided between a super-rich elite and the working poor.” With their wages cut to $10.50 an hour, the UAW president said, it would take a Delphi worker 171 years to match the $3.75 million Miller has pocketed since signing on as CEO six months ago.

Before US Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain, however, the union has struck a very different note, complaining that Delphi’s executive compensation plan would “unduly and unnecessarily complicate an already difficult reorganization by impeding the Union’s ability to reach a consensual restructuring agreement with Delphi.”

In an objection filed November 22, the lawyers for the UAW wrote: “The company could not have picked a less hospitable time to seek approval of a rich payment package for its executives. Any negotiated modifications to the UAW labor agreements would require membership ratification. It is unlikely that the UAW will be able to garner the necessary support among its membership for a negotiated agreement if the employees view the process as tainted by large awards for a select few while they bear the brunt of the cost-cutting.”

In other words, rein in the company’s greed, or we might have a rank-and-file rebellion that scuttles our best efforts to push through wage cuts and layoffs.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/delp-d10.shtml