NYT: Delphi Workers Accept Pay Cuts

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/business/30auto.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

Delphi Workers Accept Pay Cuts

By NICK BUNKLEY
Published: June 30, 2007

DETROIT, June 29 — A year ago, members of the United Automobile Workers union who gathered in Las Vegas brashly reaffirmed their fortitude with Bruce Springsteen’s rebellious lyrics, “No retreat, baby, no surrender.”

This week, less than a month before the U.A.W. begins negotiating a new contract with Detroit’s automakers, its members at the Delphi Corporation voted to accept some of the largest concessions that the union has ever given to an employer — and cuts that its leaders had vowed to fight, even if a strike proved necessary.

Workers at Delphi, the bankrupt auto supplier, agreed to a deal that cuts many longtime employees’ pay by almost half and eliminates a 23-year-old job-security provision known as the jobs bank.

The deal, which covers 17,000 hourly workers, was supported by 68 percent of Delphi workers who voted, the U.A.W. said Friday.

To be sure, the agreement, which was reached this week after two years of talks and still requires a bankruptcy judge’s approval, cuts pay less than Delphi originally demanded.

But labor experts say the U.A.W.’s overwhelming support for the deal suggests that automakers may be able to get other union members to accept cuts this summer.

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