Retirees of Delphi call on Congress

Photo

Delphi Corp. salaried retirees demonstrate at a congressional hearing about their pensions last year in Canfield. A similar hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will take place today in Dayton. Bruce Gump of Howland, vice president of the Delphi Salaried Retirees’ Association, is expected to testify at the hearings.

Staff and wire report

DAYTON

During her 31 years with General Motors, and later Delphi, Mary Miller got glossy personal-benefit summaries about what her retirement would look like — her health benefits, stock savings, pension plans.

“Year after year they sent it, and I believed them,” she said.

One year after her forced retirement in 2008, however, Miller and 20,000 other retired Delphi salaried employees in 46 states — including 1,500 in the Mahoning Valley — lost their health benefits and much of their pensions as GM was pulled out of bankruptcy.

“I was very loyal and dedicated and responsible,” Miller said. “Delphi workers did our part and we did it well. We were betrayed.”

The bailout of GM has been praised for keeping the American auto industry alive, but Miller and other Ohio Delphi retirees often feel like the forgotten casualties. Many are working post-retirement jobs, asking their spouses to defer retirement, or even being forced to sell their homes.

The Washington Township mother of four will be one of the panelists at today’s Delphi pension field hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Dayton, requested by U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville.

The hearing, titled “Delphi Pension Fallout: Federal Government Picked Winners and Losers, So Who Won and Who Lost,” is open to the public and will begin at 9 a.m. at the Smith Auditorium at Sinclair Community College. Other panelists will include former Delphi Corp. executives Chuck Cunningham and Steve Gebbia.

Also testifying will be Bruce Gump of Howland, vice chairman of the board of directors of the Delphi Salaried Retirees’ Association.

“The treatment that we received at the hands of the Obama administration and the PBGC has severely damaged not only us, but our families and our communities,” Gump said, referring to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

The salaried retiree pensions and health and life insurance benefits were sacrificed in the General Motors bailout, while the pensions and benefits of many union retirees were largely protected, Gump said.

Today’s hearing will be the fifth congressional hearing Gump has testified in since October 2009.

Gump said a Youngstown State University study done at the request of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-17th, of Niles, “has accurately predicted that the cost to the economy of the Mahoning Valley was over $161 million per year when all retiree issues were taken into account.”

That study predicted that for every $1 million in lost retiree benefits, 30 people “downstream” have lost or will lose their jobs in the retail and other sectors, resulting in some 4,800 lost jobs, Gump said.

“The government acted immorally, unethically and illegally when it did not treat all of the retirees with fairness and equity,” Gump said Sunday as he was en route to Dayton.

About 1,500 salaried and about 11,500 hourly Delphi retirees still reside in the Mahoning Valley.

A group of salaried retirees is suing the PBGC, the U.S. Treasury Department and others who oversaw efforts to pull GM and Delphi from bankruptcy in 2009.

CONTRIBUTORS: Vindicator Staff Writer Peter Milliken and The Dayton Daily News