The White House believes it can win back depressed and economically stressed voters by turning President Obama into the storyteller-in-chief again. But victims of Obama’s Chicago politics don’t want to hear any more of his own well-worn tales of struggle and sacrifice. They’ve got their own tragedies to tell — heart-wrenching dramas of personal and financial suffering at the very hands of Obama.
Consider the real-life horror story of 20,000 white-collar workers at Delphi, a leading auto parts company spun off from GM a decade ago. As Washington rushed to nationalize the U.S. auto industry with $80 billion in taxpayer “rescue” funds and avoid contested court termination proceedings, the White House auto team schemed with Big Labor bosses to preserve UAW members’ costly pension funds by shafting their nonunion counterparts. In addition, the nonunion pensioners lost all of their health and life insurance benefits.
The abused workers — most from hard-hit northeast Ohio, Michigan and neighboring states — had devoted decades of their lives as secretaries, technicians, engineers and sales employees at Delphi/GM. Some workers have watched up to 70 percent of their pensions vanish.
John Berent of Marblehead, Ohio, lost one-third of his pension: “I worked as a salaried employee for GM (30 years) and Delphi (10 years). After 40 years of dedicated service, I was forced to retire. Then Delphi terminated my health care, life insurance, vision, dental, then terminated the pension plan. Everything I worked 40 years for was wiped out.”
Kelly Fabrizio of Franksville, Wis., saw her pension reduced by 55 percent after working 30 years at Delphi/GM: “I am truly scared for my future. Every day I wake up, shake my head and say out loud — This Is Not How It Was Supposed To Be.”
Roger Hoke of Columbus, Mich., and his wife were both longtime Delphi workers. His pension shrunk by more than 40 percent: “After 33 years with GM and another 10 with Delphi, what did I do wrong to deserve such a fate?”
Paul Dobosz of the Delphi Salaried Retiree Association recounts how they got screwed: “The Auto Task Force knew that the only thing standing in the way of GM getting what they wanted out of Delphi was the already frozen pension obligations.” They hatched a plan to dump those pensions on the federally run Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, while at the same time “devising a clever way to make the UAW pensions whole using GM and TARP money to accomplish it.
I an article several years ago about GM. The article said that you could sum up GM problems in three words, LACK OF QUALITY. I guess they have added three more words "lack of integrity".
Well, obviously these Delphi folks didn't contribute to the Obama candidacy…
And now OBAMA's Treasury is trying to get the Chinese to "invest" in GM….
Like CHAVEZ in Venezuela, is he trying to sell out the US piece by piece ??
It is not enough we owe our souls to Communist China because even the American babies come from Beijing instead of Paris as we were lead to believe as children, now
he is sellin out our country…
Talking about what this demagogue fills his mouth with….
HOW ABOUT BRINGING BACK THE "MADE IN USA" TAG …???
Such would create jobs galore and not his demagogery and if we can't compete with rice hands, then by GOD erect import tariffs barriers…! ! !
This what a government is for…! ! !
I own a Saturn car. It is 11 years old, gets 39 mpg and has 217,000 miles on the odometer. I cannot buy a new Saturn, as Government Motors scrapped the division during its "bankruptcy". Saturn was not a union shop. That can't have anything to do with why GM closed the Saturn division, can it?
Ditto, tanstaafl…We still have one, and had 2 at one time. Yes, the best mpg was 39mpg for the 1994 SC2. It was fast and efficient to drive. I read about the "union" issue shortly after they were closed. I will never buy another GM car. Sadly that car finally died at 225K miles. Toyota, here we come.
Careful, even the prized Lexus is being recalled
I have a 1991 toyota corolla with 270,000 miles. Original manual transmission but had a ring job at about 200,000.
My husband and I both drive Saturns (my 3rd!). My 1993 Saturn saved my son's life in a broadside collision that he walked away from with just scratches. And now Saturn is gone. I grew up in GM country and bought GM all my life, but never again. They've broken my heart and once my faithful Vue is gone, it's a Toyota or Honda for me.
Prosopective Toyota (and Honda) customers, at least try to buy a model assembled in USA. For that matter, Nissan and Mitsubishi, BMW and Mercedes, also have American assembly plants.
As for myself, I've always bought Chrysler products. But they're now part of Obama Motors, although not to the same extent as GM, so I'm doubtful I'll stay with them. Probably be a Ford for me next year.
This is class warfare between union and non-union labor.
No, it's Obama paying back his union cronies for election contributions. Spread the wealth he says. He must be removed from office.
That's one aspect of the class war that was ignited by President Obama and others. And it's a big part too. Anyway, Union labor is far more favored by the Left than non-union. At this point, I don't imagine the unions mind being pawns in this class struggle because it is paying off for them.
I have always bought Chevrolet. I will never buy another.
Those Delphi workers should show up at the next big union meeting.
I , too, had a GM car I liked very much. This story is playing out everywhere in the country, the taxpayers pay for generous pension plans for union workers, including local, state and Federal Union workers, while our retirement plans have been decimated. And we are still expected to prop up these benefits after government policies destroyed our wealth. And it doesn't end there, the Democrat Congress is targeting what is left of our retirement accounts to continue propping up this unsustainable system. I have an idea- let's cut the union pension plans in half. Why are they exempt from the market crash and the recession? Why are we financing their financial security? I never ever sympathized with the revolutionaries in the French Revolution: until now. Let's see, does GM make anything resembling a tumbrel? Where did I put those knitting needles?
I'll never buy any GM product no matter how much improved they are. I'm not alone, either: a Ford salesman said his business has skyrocketed since Obama used our tax money to bail out his UAW pals. I also noticed somewhere that sales of non-union vehicles are also up while sales by Government Motors and the Peoples Democratic Republic of Chrysler are in the tank.
Unions and Democrats have helped themselves to my future. The only way I can get any of it back is by boycotting everything they touch. I urge all readers here to do the same.
>>> I'll never buy any GM product no matter how much improved they are.
Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. There is zero chance, none nada zilch, that the UAW will produce a reliable product anytime soon.
Why should they work hard? What's Obama gonna do, fire them? Close the company? lol They now have the company, the government and Obama by the balls. I foresee more typical union laziness.
Work hard to make sure common sense fiscal conservatives get elected this November…it's time to put the brakes on this idiotic trillion dollar deficit mess.
Delphi workers…..you have been screwed by another type of Bernie Madoff…..Fedzilla….which makes Bernie Madoff look like a piker.
When Enron collapsed and wiped out retirement funds Congress got its knickers in a twist and had hearings to get to the bottom of that debacle…
We owe a great deal to unions for living wages, benefits, safer working conditions, and a large middle-class. Numerous blue collar families earned enough to send their children to college and university because of unions.
The problem is human nature, and unions took advantage of businesses and eventually bankrupted many. This is similar to communism's failure; Marx did not understand human nature, and the ideology turned into another corrupt system as violent and corrupt as the Tsars' regimes.
This is typical of this administration. It helps its friends and supporters and screws everyone else. I hope Fox News brings up this important case on Sept. 24. The Delphi workers deserve justice. Someone needs to go to jail. As with Nixon, I say, jail to the Chief! His job is to enforce the law fairly and equally. The deal to support the claims of the unions of GM ahead of everyone else violates the rule of laws. November is coming workers of Delphi. What happened to you, will happen to the nation, if the Democrats retain control of Congress. Not only that, the Unions will be rewarded with card check.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. Thomas Jefferson
That's an odd tack to take aspacia. I honestly don't agree with the first half of your comment. Unions were not necessarily to thank for living wages ect. A lot of unions were formed strictly for the power it gave the organizers, not to mention the money. It doesn't take a genius to realize the more you can get for your group in wages, the more you can extract for dues. Not only that, the more you get for your group, the more they are beholden to you for their jobs. No, I think unions are simply an offshoot of communism run by the same kind of leadership. Human nature stepped in the minute the unions formed and began to take advantage. You assume that companies would not offer better wages and working conditions without a veritable gun to their heads. As a company owner (that supported my employees despite my personal losses) and knowing others that operate companies, I know they are not all bad, as some would like us to think, and that these changes would have come about on their own without having the current albatross hanging about their, and current society's, necks in the form of unions.
I think both of you are right about unions. Early on, they were needed to fight against corporations that were exploiting the worker. Administrations, favorable and unfavorable to labor came and went, but once unions were recognized as a partner at the negotiating table, their demands increased. They wanted more and more meant power. I'm not going to say all unions are this way, but organized crime got into the mix. Union pension plans and dues are mighy attractive. Since the 70's on up, they have killed many the goose that has laid the golden egg. With SEIU pushing for card check, and an administration only too willing to give it to them, I fear for business in this country. If I were an established business, I would be looking for another country with a pro-business attitude, but not one that treats the workers like crap.
BUT organized crime got into the mix Wes? Sorry, organized crime began the mixing in the first place. Unions began as nothing more than protection rackets against both the companies and the workers. True, there were some heinous company crimes, that is undeniable. After the 20's though, people were more mobile and able to get out of company towns and the excesses. It became a matter of choice as to whether you would work for a bad company or not. Nowadays, soon people won't have a choice whether to be in a union or not. Same difference.
I seem to remember a whole lot of people like the commenters here… back in 2008
screaming "let it fail"… "let it fail".
Union or non-union… Where would any of those folks have been now… with YOUR plan?
Ummm…lemme see…working?
…in Mexico, India, Japan, Malaysia…
Fail to read your Dim talking points Jim? Obama Motors opened a new plant in Mexico after it got it's bailout and was taken over. Exactly who is pushing globalization or world government Jim?
As I remember, that new multi-billion $ plant in Mexico was announced at the same time that BHO was touring Michigan, bragging how a few hundred million $ were being invested in local auto plants, and how many jobs that would create, or save. A few hundred jobs in Michigan, versus a few thousand in Mexico, all with American tax-payers' $.