Delphi and the Hatchet Man
Some folks think Steve Miller, Delphi’s new CEO, is a straight shooting, no-nonsense gunslinger. The Hatchet is supposed to be a “turn-around specialist”. But Miller is a corporate carpetbagger with only one tool in his box—bankruptcy. He wants us to believe that stiffing workers and unsecured creditors is the mark of success, but anyone can look successful if they don’t tally debt and damage.
Miller’s not a “turn-around specialist,” he’s a one trick pony with all the finesse of a Saturday Night Special.
A company should go into bankruptcy as a last resort, not when it simply wants to nullify a contract with workers and dump the pension. Miller may call it Chapter 11, but if it acts like extortion and smells like extortion, it is extortion.
OUR LEGACY
Miller’s favorite fantasy is how Delphi has been victimized by “legacy costs”, i.e., compensation for workers and retirees. But he doesn’t admit the total legacy package.
Consider this: In 1999 Delphi owned outright all the property, machinery, technology, patents, and products. The pension was fully funded. The company carried contracts with the largest automotive manufacturer in the world in their back pockets.
Read the 1999 Delphi Prospectus. Stock was selling for more than $20 a share. In six years Delphi hotshots trashed North American operations and the price of a share fell to a buck-twelve.
Delphi was born like a rich man’s son—debt-free and stocked high with entitlements. And like a prodigal son Miller expects someone else to clean up the mess and pay the price for a squandered legacy.
MILKED DRY
Since 1992 all of Delphi’s profits were invested outside the United States. Our plants were milked dry and undermined. GM has lost money in European, South American, and Asian markets for years. North American operations subsidized those lackluster investments.
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If Delphi can restrict the repercussions of bankruptcy to holdings in the United States, what will deter GM from following suit? And every other multinational corporation thereafter?
NO ACCIDENT
Delphi is not a victim of an unforeseen disaster or free-market catastrophe. GM has been methodically divesting from Delphi for more than a decade. It doesn’t take a hedge fund analyst to see that GM/Delphi’s goal is to destroy the UAW by undermining our foundation.
Bankruptcy was in the cards before the first shuffle. The hand we were dealt wasn’t left to chance.
It wasn’t creditors who forced Delphi into court, it wasn’t debt, it was the desire to renege on obligations to workers.
Do I sound angry? A man with no investment of time, energy, or money in Delphi; a man with no ties to the workplace community; a man who won’t even be around when the dust settles, is stealing my life savings.
WHERE’S THE UNION?
The UAW wants to negotiate opportunities for UAW members to transfer back from Delphi to GM, but the deck chairs are blowing overboard faster than they can arrange seating.
We don’t need a union to bargain for concessions. The judge will do it for free. The UAW can’t expect to survive if it divides the solidarity of active, retired, and newly hired members into descending tiers of importance.
This situation isn’t unique to Delphi. It has happened before and it will happen again and again until workers band together and take the law into their own hands. Nothing less than a national strike will suffice. Until then, work to rule or stop whining.
