Salaried retirees — shafted by the Auto Task Force
- Details
- February 20 2015
2/19/2015, Detroit News, Daniel Howes
Rodney O'Neal, Delphi Automotive CEO, interviewed by the Detroit News, stated "~one of the covenants was to maintain the pensions," O'Neal says, clearly mindful the subject remains raw with many salaried retirees who believe — rightly — they were shafted by the auto task force. "We went on the record with that. I did three plans of reorganization. In two of them, the pensions were intact. The last one: We ran into a global economic tsunami. It took another year-and-a-half to get out" of bankruptcy. "What happened, happened. It was legal. But it could have happened another way, and it was legal. I failed, and I failed miserably." It "was never in our plan to throw the pensions over."
The Detroit News continues "Delphi's financial performance since shows there was another way. Investors and the Obama task force didn't give O'Neal and his team the chance to prove the company could afford it — because it could." Detroit News article
Delphi salaried retirees continue their fight to restore their reduced pensions claiming that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) illegally assumed their pensions under the direction of the US Treasury and the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry – O'Neal's comments support the fact that there was no need for the PBGC to assume and reduce the salaried retirees' pensions.
Status of our Fight for our Pensions
- Details
- January 30 2015
We continue to win in the courts at every critical juncture as our legal battle moves into its sixth year. Simply stated, we believe the unnecessary termination of our pension plan by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) in 2009 violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) because:
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the PBGC went ahead and seized our plan without seeking the required approval of a federal district court;
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the PBGC made no provision for substantial safeguards of the interests of retirees and our beneficiaries, as the PBGC is required to do. Instead, it released liens against Delphi's foreign assets that would have helped protect retirees' interests;
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Delphi Corporation, as the Plan Administrator, acted not as a fiduciary in the interest of retirees and beneficiaries, as required, but rather because it was being pressured by the federal government to terminate the plan as part of the government's orchestrated effort to restructure the U.S. auto industry as expediently and cheaply as possible.
We believe the PBGC also violated our Fifth Amendment Constitutional right of due process when it terminated our plan without giving salaried retirees meaningful notice and without an opportunity to defend our interests in a federal district court hearing.
