By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Herald Bulletin
If there is something worse than hearing your employer has declared bankruptcy, it might be not knowing what will happen to your job.
Rebecca Roush knows.
“It makes me sick, physically and emotionally drained,” Roush, 56, said. “We just don’t know anything.”
For those who depend on Delphi Corp., which declared bankruptcy on Oct. 8, planning for the future is like reading tea leaves.
Besides introducing a plan on Oct. 21 to slash worker salaries 60 percent, freeze the pension plan to new participants, and ask hourly workers to pay health care premiums, Delphi executives have generally stayed mum on what may happen to their workers, nearly 800 of whom are in Anderson.
On Wednesday, a clue leaked from the company. According to a document leaked to The Detroit News, the company may close five plants, including Plant 9 in Kokomo. The company shot back, saying the document was a draft and threatening legal action against whoever leaked it.
Even though Anderson wasn’t on the list for closure, it didn’t contain much good news. The restructuring outline relied on the company’s higher- technology Electronic and Safety division to bring it into the black.
Its Anderson operations are not involved in that division, Delphi spokesman Brad Jackson said Friday.
“I don’t think they’re thinking about what this will do to the local economy, let alone state and national. We just can’t compete with these Third World wages,” Charles Walker, 58, said. “A company who’s been here so many years just can’t pull out.”
The city of Anderson is working to keep it here by putting together a local incentive package.
“State and local government are working together with Delphi officials,” Mayor Kevin Smith said in a press release. “We have also had conversations with UAW Local 662 representatives to assure them we will do all that’s possible to save jobs in Anderson during this time of uncertainty affecting the auto industry.”
Meanwhile, local UAW leaders directed reporters to its central leadership, who directed them to its Web site.
In its latest update, the union gave its membership a timetable for negotiations.
“The October 21 proposal was much worse than Delphi’s mid-August proposal which was not acceptable,” officials said in a press release. “If the proposals reflect the true position of the company it is unlikely that an agreement will be consummated.”
The press release continued with important dates, according to the bankruptcy courts:
• On October 21, 2005 – Company provides the union with its proposed modifications to the UAW-Delphi National Agreement.
• On or before November 18, 2005 – Company shall serve the UAW with any proposals to modify applicable local agreements.
• December 16, 2005 – Delphi files its Section 1113-1114 Motions with the Bankruptcy Court, seeking to reject the UAW-Delphi Agreements and allow the Company to impose modifications.
• January 11, 2006 – Date by which UAW’s briefs in opposition to Delphi’s 1113-1114 Motions are submitted to the Court.
• January 24, 2006 – Bankruptcy Court begins hearings on Delphi’s Section 1113-1114 Motions.
So business will continue as usual at least until Jan. 24, the release said.
Back in Anderson, 30-year veteran John Fairchild, 56, was resigned.
“I didn’t want to retire for a couple more years, but it’s not worth it for $10 or $12 a hour,” Fairchild, who makes $27 an hour, said. He shrugged. “You go to do what you got to do.
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