Wicker And Boehner Continue To Seek Answers For Delphi Retirees

Topics:  Senator Roger Wicker, Delphi

Congressman John Boehner
March 31, 2011

Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) today highlighted the initial phase of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) non-partisan, independent analysis of the federal financial assistance provided to the General Motors (GM) Corporation and its treatment of non-unionized Delphi retirees. The report contains a specific timeline of the events that transpired.

This is an important step in learning why Delphi retirees were treated differently than their union counterparts, said WICKER. After reviewing GAOs initial timeline of events, it is clear that the unions received unjust preferential treatment. I am confident that further GAO reports will clearly lay out the reasons why this happened.

This report deepens my concern about the way the federal government treated these retirees, said BOEHNER. Senator Wicker and I have demanded that the government explain why non-unionized Delphi retirees were treated differently than their union counterparts at GM. This report makes it more evident than ever that there was preferential treatment given to the unions at the expense of Delphi retirees. The Delphi retirees deserve an explanation for this, and they deserve accountability.”

GM received more than $70 billion in taxpayer funding to keep the company afloat. Under the Obama administration, the federal government acquired a 60 percent ownership of GM following the companys bankruptcy proceedings. Additionally, the United Auto Workers Union received a 17.5 percent ownership in the auto manufacturer. Many are concerned that the federal government, acting through GM, picked winners and losers in the GM bankruptcy proceedings. Pension agreements are altered routinely during bankruptcy proceedings, but in the GM case, certain pension beneficiaries were protected during the process while others were not.

A link to the initial GAO report can be found here. In addition to the phase one report, GAO plans to release a final report at the end of this year that will investigate why unionized Delphi retirees were treated differently than their non-unionized counterparts.

The GAO report will be coordinated with a report from the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP). The SIGTARP audit will examine if any outside political influence from the Obama Administration played a role in keeping unionized pensions whole while non-unionized pensions were not.