The Detroit Free Press
reports that Delphi
released a study Friday that shows the combined wage and benefits package for its unionized workers amounts to $76 an
hour, double what its competitors pay.
The compensation breaks down like this: a wage of $26.97 an hour for a first-year employee, $28.66 an hour for
benefits such as health care and vacation days, and $22.63 an hour in “legacy costs,” which include retirement
health-care costs. Delphi says competing companies pay their workers $22.60 an hour – $13.98 base wage, $7.85 in
benefits and 77 cents in legacy costs.
Of course, Delphi has no-one to blame but its own management, who brilliantly negotiated the deals that the company
now considers unacceptable.
Delphi is poised to file a motion with the bankruptcy court December 16 asking to eliminate the company’s union
contracts and to allow it to arbitrarily impose a new pay structure.
As the Delphi bankruptcy evolves, you can follow Delphi’s side of the story at its “reorganization’
website.
[Thanks for the tip, Joel!]