UAW turns down Delphi offer
A UAW leader suggests automakers won't receive health-care concessions.
DETROIT (AP) -- The United Auto Workers union has rejected a wage offer from struggling auto-parts maker Delphi Corp., a top labor official said Wednesday. The company said it was still bargaining with the union.
Vice President Cal Rapson, who heads negotiations with Delphi, told reporters at the union's bargaining convention in Detroit that the offer was "insulting." It was presented March 21 by Delphi, General Motors Corp. and private equity groups that are interested in investing in Delphi. Rapson said the offer was rejected Monday.
"The ball's in their court," President Ron Gettelfinger said Wednesday when asked what would happen next. "We've done more for Delphi than we should have done."
Gettelfinger's comments came a day after he said there were no talks under way with Delphi and he didn't know when Rapson last talked to the company.
Still bargaining
A Delphi spokesman would not confirm that an offer had been made, but said the company, along with the investors and GM, are still bargaining with union. Delphi has about 8,000 hourly employees in Ohio, although workers in the Mahoning Valley are represented by the International Union of Electrical Workers.
"That would indicate that we are at least talking," Delphi spokesman Lindsey Williams said of Rapson's comments about the offer.
At the close of the convention Wednesday, Gettelfinger said any agreement with Delphi depends on what the company does next.
"It's going to be a slugfest. There's no question about it," he said. "They have their own lines that we're not going to cross."
On Tuesday, Gettelfinger also said he's tired of playing around with Delphi and vowed to strike if the company continues with plans to void its labor contracts in court.
"If they void the contracts, we are going to shut them down," he said.
Troy-based Delphi, a parts-making operation of General Motors until it was spun off in 1999, has been operating under bankruptcy protection since October 2005. It hopes to emerge from Chapter 11 this year.
The company has said it can't compete with its high labor costs. It has asked a federal bankruptcy court in New York for permission to void previous labor contracts, but it has said it prefers a negotiated settlement to court action.
Health-care issues
Meanwhile, Gettelfinger said the union already has made health-care concessions to General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., and he suggested that it won't give any more.
He said the UAW made major concessions in 2005 that saved Ford and General Motors billions of dollars in long-term retiree health-care obligations.
"We addressed health care in '05. You don't get two bites of the apple, do you?" he said.
"We've stepped up to the plate," Gettelfinger said when asked if the union would consider further concessions or taking on the health-care obligations in a deal similar to one reached between the Goodyear Tire & amp; Rubber Co. and the United Steelworkers.
When asked if the union wouldn't do any more, he replied: "I'm saying I'm not going to negotiate in the media, but they know what we did."