Treasury, Delphi Salaried Retirees to Meet
WASHINGTON – Representatives of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association will meet to discuss and pursue efforts to restore the retirees’ pensions and benefits, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown announced Tuesday.
In a letter sent last month to Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, Brown urged Lew to review the proposal submitted by the Delphi retirees group to pursue other solutions to ensure retirees’ receive the benefits they earned but were lost through the bankruptcy of General Motors.
“I will continue to stand by the Delphi retirees as they make their important case to the administration,” Brown said. “We all need to work together to find a solution that would restore the pensions and benefits that Delphi retirees deserve.”
In 2009, Delphi’s bankruptcy cost approximately 19,000 hourly retirees and 20,000 salaried retirees their full pensions after the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. assumed Delphi’s pension plans. While three unions representing hourly Delphi retirees had reached contractual agreements with General Motors to ensure full pension protection -- negotiated in 1999 and reaffirmed in 2007 -- the remaining workers had not.
In the letter to Brown, Alastair M. Fitzpayne, assistant secretary for legislative affiars at Treasury, said his department had been in contact with the salaried retirees regarding proposals to restore their pensions benefits in 2011 and 2012 and expressed willingness to meet again, but that PBGC is responsible for administering the Delphi pension plans and would be responsible for determining whether it has the authority to accept the retirees' proposal.
Critics have charged that the Obama Administration gave preferential treatment to the unionized workers. Organized labor largely backed Obama’s 2008 election campaign.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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