Delphi Salaried Retirees - will appear at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on October 29, 2009.  Their goal is to try to maintain their pension administration by Delphi Corporation rather than the PBGC.  If they do not succeed, some Delphi Salaried Retirees could have their pension payments reduced by 30% to 70%.  We have been working with the Delphi Salaried Retirees group to assist where we can.  The letter below is another attempt to bring more attention to the plight of these fellow salaried retirees and hopefully gain respect for the pensions they worked so long to have in their retirement years.

General Motors National Retiree Association

Over The Hill Car People, LLC

Established 2003

5184 Caldwell Mill Road
Suite 204, Box 190
Hoover, Alabama  35244

October 26, 2009

Chairman Tom Harkin
Ranking Member Michael Enzi
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee
428 Senate Dirksen Office Building
Washington, D. C.  20510

RE:  Delphi Salaried Retiree Pension

Dear Chairman Harkin and Congressman Enzi:

We would like to put our full support behind the Delphi Salaried Retirees as they seek equal and fair treatment in the preservation and maintenance of their pension fund.  Delphi’s pension obligation to this group of retirees has defaulted to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), while the pension fund for the hourly retirees continues to be maintained without any loss of benefits, simply because of a previously agreed upon “top-up” benefit negotiated on their behalf in 1999.  The salaried retiree has never had the luxury of a negotiated voice! 

In an effort to change this lack of representation for the salaried retiree, we joined forces with the retiree associations of Delphi, Chrysler and Ford as The National Automotive Coalition (TNAC) in April 2009, and spoke before The Auto Task Force as a united voice for the automotive salaried retiree.  We spoke again before this group in July 2009.  Since that time, our voices have grown even stronger with the backing of our cause by many congressional leaders, such as Chris Lee of New York and Tim Ryan of Ohio.  Now, we need your committee’s support to “negotiate” loud and clear for a “top-up” for the Delphi salaried retirees!

The benefits received from such an action would far outweigh the guaranteed economic consequences that will befall this group of innocent retirees who devoted their lives to a company who is now turning its back on their very existence.  These retirees took a responsible approach to planning for their retirement.  Their company was not responsible.  Let’s not go down that same path and be irresponsible, too.  Please make a morally and economically right decision and restore the dignity and financial security that rightfully belong to the Delphi Salaried Retiree.

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of this matter.

Respectfully submitted,

Jack Dickinson, President
GM National Retiree Association – OTHCP
GM Representative for The National Automotive Coalition

CC:  Honorable Barack Obama
         President of the United States

        Timothy Geithner
        Secretary of the Treasury

         Ron Bloom
        Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy

        Brian Deese
        Member of National Economic Council
        Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy

        Dr. Edward Montgomery
        Director of Recovery for Auto Community and Workers

        Vince Snowbarger
        Acting Director
        Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

For Delphi Pensioners,
The Union Label Helps

The New York Times WARREN, Ohio

Bruce Gump and his neighbors feared for their retirement checks when the federal government took over the pension plans at Delphi, the big auto parts maker where they once worked.

But four months later, Gump finds himself in a far more perilous condition than his neighbors.

On his street, he is the only Delphi worker whose pension benefits may be cut. His neighbors all belong to unions and have received a lifeline in an unprecedented deal related to the government-supervised bankruptcy of General Motors, the onetime parent of Delphi. (GM spun off the parts division as a separate company 10 years ago.)

Gump and some 21,000 other salaried workers and retirees are furious that their roughly 46,000 union co-workers at Delphi have had their benefits restored, apparently with government largesse, and they have not.

“I’m being thrown out with yesterday’s trash,” he said.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures pension plans, caps the amount of benefits it will pay, using a formula based on age and the type of benefits an employee earned. But in a side arrangement, GM is agreeing to pay special supplements, called top-ups, so that Delphi’s union retirees get everything they were promised.

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