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TOP 10: No. 3 GM and Lockport are reunited
Buyback of Upper Mountain Road plant, bankruptcies and salaried retiree pensions highlight eventful year
General Motors is back in Lockport after spending nearly a decade apart, while Delphi salaried retirees are still fighting for their pensions.
In October, GM repurchased the Lockport plant, as well as four others in the U.S., from what was Delphi Corp. The purchases were part of Delphi’s plan to emerge from its four-year bankruptcy odyssey. The other plants GM took back were in Rochester; Kokomo, Ind.; and Wyoming, Mich.; as well as Delphi’s steering business. The plants will be under a subsidiary company called GM Components Holdings, while the steering business will be renamed Nexteer Automotive. The technical center in Lockport will remain under the new Delphi company, Delphi Holdings.
GM representatives have said they liked what they saw in the Lockport plant. The plant makes a wide variety of heating and cooling products that GM can use in its vehicles. There was also a newfound optimism among the plant’s 1,400 salaried and hourly workers.
Delphi spun off from GM in 1999, became GM’s largest parts supplier and entered into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005.
The repurchase came after GM exited bankruptcy in July and was needed for Delphi to emerge from bankruptcy in October.
But as part of Delphi’s plan, pensions for both hourly and salaried retirees and workers were turned over to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. The PBGC is a governmental agency charged with protecting pensions, but the move could lead to cuts in pensions by as much as 70 percent, critics of the move say.
Hourly workers and retirees will have their pensions “topped off” by GM, covering what ever they lose under the PBGC. But salaried workers and retirees will not have their pensions topped off.
In response, salaried retirees formed the Delphi Salaried Retiree Association. Support has also come from political leaders, such as US Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Chris Lee, R-Clarence. A congressional hearing on Delphi salaried retiree pensions was held earlier this month by the House Education and Labor Committee’s subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions. Lee said the hearing has generated overwhelming support for the workers and retirees in Congress — support which could keep the pensions issue moving forward.
The pensions were another blow Delphi retirees had to deal with this year. In April, Delphi retirees lost their health care and insurance benefits, which Delphi said at the time would save their company more than $70 million a year.
Contact reporter Joe Olenick
at 439-9222, ext. 6241.
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