Members of the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association stood and chanted “Pass this bill” in a September 2022 meeting at a Sinclair Community College auditorium.
The White House supports a plan to boost the pensions of managerial retirees of defunct auto parts producer Delphi as part of a supplemental appropriations package, the office of U.S. Rep. Mike Turner said Wednesday, June 24.
If the pensions are funded with $1 billion in the spending package working its way through the House, the move would be a triumphal cap to a 17-year battle for the retirees.
“Since the beginning I have remained committed to righting the wrong done to our Delphi retirees,” Turner, R-Dayton, said in a statement. “My amendment to the (National Defense Authorization Act) will restore their pensions, and I am grateful to have the support of the White House in this long-fought battle. I am working closely with Sen. (Jon) Husted on this as we fight to see it through to the end.”
“It’s past time to bring justice to these families, including more than 5,100 Ohioans, and deliver to them what they were promised,” Husted said in his own statement.
The funding needs support in both the House and the Senate and President Donald Trump’s signature.
The fight for the pensions has been a long one.
In January 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case of a group of retired Delphi managers who had been fighting at that point for 13 years to restore the pensions Delphi — once a large Dayton-area manufacturer with more than 10,000 local employees — surrendered to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. in 2009.
When the PBGC took over responsibility for the pensions during Delphi’s bankruptcy stint, retirees ended up being paid far less than they expected.
The salaried retirees named the PBGC as a defendant in a federal lawsuit that ultimately did not go their way.
Since then, retirees looked to Congress for a legislative fix. Despite repeated efforts, attempted legislative remedies foundered.
In a historical twist, General Motors paid the difference between lower PBGC pension payments and the payments GM — which once owned Delphi — promised contractually to hourly retirees represented by the United Auto Workers.
The salaried retirees never begrudged their union counterparts their full pensions. They simply wanted what they felt they were owed.
Both Delphi and GM went through separate stints in bankruptcy court in 2009 to 2010.
Delphi split in 2017. The company no longer has a Dayton presence. Today, Delphi-branded parts are produced by Phinia Inc.