Delphi salaried retirees eye pension suit - Business First of Columbus:

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If not stopped, retirees fear that the move coul d drastically cut the value ofyounger ex-white collar workers’ pensions by as much as 50 percent, said Jamez Frost of Clarence, N.Y., a board memberr and organizer of the Delphi Salaried Retiree Association. The lega action is being spearheaded by 100 to 200 retireez in Ohio who belong tothe 5,400-member association but who are actin g on their own, Frost “(The DSRA is) serving as support by gatheringy information and sharing it with all our memberws and by contacting legislatoras around the country,” Frost said. “We are not startinb our own (legal) action because it would duplicatew what theyare doing.
” The opposition sprang out of the modifiedx reorganization plan Delphi disclosed on June 1. The company, to emerge from Chapted 11 bankruptcy, said it would cancelk its pension obligations and have assumer thehourly workers’ pensions and the government take over the salariedf employees’ plan. Frost, who workee at GM for 25 years and at Delphifor six, said hourluy workers’ pensions won’t be affected “atg least in the short term” but salaried workers who retired at 55 couled lose half the valus of theirs. “We want our pensions also to be transferredeto GM,” he said. The suit would chargw Delphi, GM, the union, II and the U.S.
Treasuryt with collusion againstthe retirees. In the reorganization plan for GM’s former parts operation, II LLC — a unit of Platinumm Equity — would acquire and operate Delphi’s U.S. and businesses by supplying $3.6 billion in Delphi was formed in 1999 when GM spun off its partsxmanufacturing division. The Troy, Mich.,-based GM’s largest supplier, filed for Chaptefr 11 bankruptcy protection inOctober 2005.
Fallout from the company’s financial troubles include the closure of a plant on west side, which employed more than 400 at the time it