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Published: Wednesday, 20 February 2013 20:45
The Untold Story of the Auto Bailout
Rep. Mike Turner (OH) Washington, 2013-02-20 -
Extracts from Rep. Turner's column - Today marks the anniversary of President Obama convening his most trusted allies and appointees to his Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry. ~ the Auto Task Force itself issued recommendation and directives to the so-called independent Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) under the guise of seeking to ensure the long-term viability of GM and the many companies in GM’s supply chain. ~ I want to shed light on the actions of the PBGC to discriminate against and unjustly terminate the pensions of Delphi’s salaried retirees, while making hourly retirees whole. The decision has left over 20,000 current and future salaried retirees with drastic reductions to their pensions and benefits. This process was done without transparency, without justification, and in my opinion, without respect for the men and women who dedicated years of service earning their retirement benefits. ~
That is why this month, with my colleague and fellow Ohioan, Congressman Tim Ryan, we have co-founded a working group of our own, the Congressional Auto Industry Pension Task Force. The newly formed Task Force, dedicated exclusively to the uncovering the truth behind the hardship imposed upon Delphi’s Salaried Retirees, will seek to hold accountable those government officials from the U.S. Treasury Department, Auto Task Force, and the PBGC who chose to terminate these retiree’s hard-earned pensions and benefits.
Read entire column...
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Published: Thursday, 07 February 2013 18:18
Statement by
Den Black, chairman, Delphi Salaried Retirees Association,
responding to the creation of the
Auto Industry Pension Task Force
By Congressmen Mike Turner (OH-10) and Tim Ryan (OH-13)
“We are deeply pleased and grateful to Congressmen Turner and Ryan for founding the Auto Industry Pension Task Force. We have fought for more than three years to regain our earned pensions, and all the economic improvements they would bring to our families and communities. We look forward to the support the Task Force will bring to bear on our issue and we especially look forward to finally achieving a fair and equitable resolution to our issues.
As Congressman Ryan pointed out, ‘The work of the Task Force will be to build a coalition members that will help ensure that the Delphi retirees can continue their retirement knowing that they will have the benefits promised to them while they were working.’ We are indeed anxious for that to occur soon with the tenacious support of the Task Force.
To date, the Delphi salaried retirees and several Congressional Committees have demanded access to records held by the U.S. Treasury that will reveal the decisions made that resulted in the salaried retirees losing up to 70 percent of their pensions while members of the politically supportive major unions saw their pensions topped up with the use of as much as $29 billion taxpayer-provided funds. So far the Treasury has refused to provide those records and has moved in court to prevent them from being revealed. As to a House Ways and Means Committee demand to be permitted access to these documents, the Administration has threatened to use executive privilege to keep the records secret, even though the request concerns a pension issue, not national security.”
