Republican and Democrat lawmakers are asking President Joe Biden’s administration for its plan to restore the pensions of about 20,000 Delphi workers following a pension-slashing scheme during the Obama administration’s auto bailout.
In 2009, as part of the Obama-Biden administration’s taxpayer-funded bailout of General Motors (GM), the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) terminated the pension plans of about 20,0000 non-unionized Delphi workers. In some cases, workers had their pensions gutted by as much as 75 percent.
A federal report in 2013 detailed that the Delphi workers would likely have their pensions cut by an estimated $440 million. Meanwhile, GM topped off unionized Delphi workers’ pensions at a cost of about $1 billion.
In October 2020, former President Donald Trump signed a memorandum that ordered federal agencies to devise a plan on how to restore the Delphi workers’ slashed pensions over 90 days. By January 20, federal agencies were supposed to have produced a report on how to restore the pensions.
A group of Republicans and Democrats, including Reps. Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Mike Turner (R-OH), have written a letter to the Biden administration inquiring as to the report’s progress:
In 2009, the Delphi Salaried Pension Plan was unfairly terminated. This unfair action devastated the long-term financial security of the almost 22,000 salaried employees at Delphi whose benefits were significantly reduced. These employees deserve the benefits they have earned. [Emphasis added]
As of June 10, 2021, we have not seen this report or have been made aware of its completion. We understand this review was due on January 20, 2021 – before you assumed your current roles. We believe it is important that Congress still have the opportunity to review the recommendations provided by your agencies. [Emphasis added]
As such, we ask you to provide us with an update on the status of the report. Specifically, we ask you to inform us when work on this report commenced, when you expect this report to be completed, and when Congress can expect to receive a copy for review. Please know that we stand ready to work with you to ensure the Delphi retirees, and all American workers can be secure in the benefits they have earned. [Emphasis added]
The lawmakers who signed the letter include:
Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Austin Scott (R-GA), Brian Higgins (D-NY), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Chris Jacobs (R-NY), Bill Johnson (R-OH), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Joseph D. Morelle (D-NY), Bryan Steil (R-WI), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Lisa C. McClain (R-MI), John R. Moolenaar (R-MI), John Katko (R-NY), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Victoria Spartz (R-IN), Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), Jack Bergman (R-MI), Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Salud Carbajal (D-CA), Andy Levin (D-MI), James R. Baird (R-IN), and David Joyce (R-OH)
The group Delphi Retirees has increased pressure on the Biden administration in recent months as well, asking where the administration’s plan is to restore the pensions:
In October 2020, as reports circulated Trump was readying an executive order to help restore the Delphi pensions, Biden said in Ohio he would “be working with your senator to figure out how we can in fact bring in the salaried workers who are really hurt as badly.”
“They deserve the pension,” Biden said.
Biden’s statements came after he claimed in 2012 that the pension-slashed Delphi workers “did fine” in the auto bailout and suggested the Obama administration had nothing to do with the matter.
“Some of them got hurt,” Biden said in 2012. “The vast majority, because of the federal pension board they have out there to make up differences when companies go under like this, most did fine.”
In 2012, federal documents unveiled how the Obama-Biden administration’s Treasury Department worked to gut the pensions of the Delphi workers. In other emails, PBGC officials indicated they had the green light from the Obama-Biden administration to slash the pensions.
Delphi, which has since split into Aptiv and Delphi Technologies, announced in 2006 that it would shutter 21 of its 29 plants in the United States — offshoring some 20,000 U.S. jobs to Mexico, China, and other foreign countries.
At the time, Delphi employed nearly 50,000 Americans, who earned about $30 an hour on the assembly line. Now, the company’s workers in Mexico earn about $1 an hour.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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