LAT: Workers Stand Against G.M.-Delphi Buyout Plan

Workers Stand Against G.M.-Delphi Buyout Plan
By P.J. Huffstutter, Times Staff Writer
March 22, 2006

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Crammed inside a smoke-filled bar, Gregg Shotwell stared grimly at a group of fellow blue-collar autoworkers, trying to rally them to fight for the American Dream.

After sticking with the automotive industry through its most dire times, and faced with deep salary cuts and diminished health care benefits, their employers at General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp. are now offering to pay them to quit: as much as $140,000 to leave or retire early -- and, in some cases, without health care or vested pensions.

It's an offer that has many workers feeling anxious, as well as angry with their bosses and their union leadership. Even the billboard across the street from the bar where Shotwell is sitting -- an advertisement for a Honda SUV -- feels like a slap in the face.

"We were promised a future with these companies. We've spent our lives at these factories. So have our parents, and so are our children," said Shotwell, 55, a machine operator at Delphi's fuel-injector plant in Coopersville, Mich. "We have to fight, any way we can."

On Wednesday, GM and Delphi -- the troubled auto-parts maker that filed for bankruptcy protection in October -- announced that they offered buyout packages to more than 125,000 hourly employees of the two companies....

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-workers23mar23,0,4918627.story?coll=la-home-headlines