Delphi seeks bankruptcy protection

[BillA]

Delphi seeks bankruptcy protection

could shake up some WCing activity, wonder if stev's group is affected ?
union costs too high, yet executive severance packages too low ?
good PR guys

[Cathar]

• Indiana employees: nearly 7,000
• 2004 performance: Lost $4.7 billion on sales of $28.6 billion

"More than 3,000 of those workers are union members whom Delphi executives have targeted for hefty pay and benefit cuts."

Hmmm, $4.7bil / 3000 = $1.57mil per worker.

Must be paying these unionised workers some pretty nice salaries nowadays if a pay cut to 3000 workers is going to turn the company around...

[jaydee]

What is their profit of that $28.6 billion? Must be loosing money to go for bankruptcy? I am not a union fan by any means as they pretty much drove most manufactures to go over seas and then they whine about it but $28 billion is a lot of cash in sales.

[ricecrispi]

I think searching around for corruption and some accounting scheme would find how that $28.6 billion went into 4.7 billion loses went instead of trying to pin it on unionized workers paychecks.

Delphi does engineering of WCing pumps and Liang makes the pumps. hopefully that doesn't hurt mcp350s production.

Added:

In 2004, Delphi recorded a $4.7 billion loss. So far this year, it has lost nearly $750 million.

Wonder how they got up to $4.7 billion when they got 10% of that amount this year and at pace for only 25% of the $4.7 billion in loses.

about 80 percent of its domestic hourly work force -- receive the same wages as GM workers, about $27 an hour. Miller said that is about twice as much as workers at Delphi competitors.

$27 x 40 x 52 = $56160 salary. Total of $400 million for employee payroll
$13 x 40 x 52 = $27040

max savings of $200 million from workers salary cuts. I bet the cuts will be smaller 50% to the level of competitors so savings of $125-100 million is reasonable.

So they have a 200 million dollar problem but try to use that to explain a $4.7 billion loss.

4,000 employees for whom neither Delphi nor GM has work. This costs Delphi about $400 million each year.

Unemployment. Bummer.

Payroll problem =$600 million. 13% of the 4.7 billion lose in one year. Cuts do solve a small problem but still $4 billion is unaccounted for.

Those two executives and nearly 600 others would receive a 10 percent stake in the company upon emerging from bankruptcy, and U.S.-based executives could also receive bonuses equal to 30 percent to 250 percent of their salaries if Delphi's plans are approved by the bankruptcy judge. On Friday, Delphi increased the severance packages for several of its executives, saying they were uncompetitive. Gettelfinger, the UAW president, called those packages a "disgusting spectacle."

That is 10% cut of the whole company is divided amoung 602 people. I don't understand how these people can rewards themselves by taking it from people's paychecks.

I smell rats and see the rich getting richer...........

[Davesworld]

I'm in the Aviation industry and always hear the anti union rhetoric in relation to Boeing machinists yet all the hourly union workers and others who directly affect aircraft production combined, make up about 5% of the cost of producing it. I have seen it both ways but consider unions a necessary evil. Also what I have observed is that when they do offload labor overseas, the consumer rarely benefits, neither in savings or quality and not much later if you pay close attention, those on the board cut themselves a bigger bonus. It's convenient and has more visual impact to put the blame on domestic labor but I'm not buying this argument for a second. On the other hand, often parts of production are offloaded to different parts of the world in order to make a sale in that region. In some instances it looks closer to blackmail, send some of the work to my country or we won't buy a large order of your product seems to be the condition of it. I saw a case where my company offloaded insulation blanket production to Mexico and laid off everyone in the blanket shop. Now, all the blanket shop employees are back on the payroll and going around to aircraft on the production lines, repairing blankets due to inferior quality and they often have to work overtime to keep up with it. The motto here is "We'll save a million dollars even if it costs us ten million".

[maxSaleen]

I would like to think that a lot of this loss is due to Delphi having to pay its suppliers. The problem with this proposition is that Delphi makes almost everything in house. I cannot imagine that they could run up such a loss simply by buying raw materials at too high a price. After all, how much frigging plastic, aluminum, and silicon can one company buy? I, also, smell a scandel.

For the record, Delphi employs nearly 200,000 people world wide.

I doubt this will effect the WC industry. Laing makes the pumps, so as long as they have the rights to do so, I don't think we will see a supply shortage.

[pauldenton]

Originally Posted by Cathar

• Indiana employees: nearly 7,000
• 2004 performance: Lost $4.7 billion on sales of $28.6 billion

"More than 3,000 of those workers are union members whom Delphi executives have targeted for hefty pay and benefit cuts."

Hmmm, $4.7bil / 3000 = $1.57mil per worker.

Must be paying these unionised workers some pretty nice salaries nowadays if a pay cut to 3000 workers is going to turn the company around...

iiuc that's only part of their US workforce (i guess that US regional papers are much more concerned with local jobs..) - further down the article it says
The bankruptcy affects only Delphi's U.S. operations and its 50,000 domestic employees. The company's foreign units and 135,000 employees would not be impacted.

The 25,000 Delphi employees represented by the UAW -- about 80 percent of its domestic hourly work force -- receive the same wages as GM workers, about $27 an hour. Miller said that is about twice as much as workers at Delphi competitors.*

so i guess that (using ricecrispi's figures for a worker based on a 40hr week as i don't know what kind of working week is normal in the states....) that's a potential saving of about $676million if they cut to $14/hr..... so add on the 4k "spare" workers and you're over a billion$ - which seems to be the scale of the current problem (if they've lost $750m in the year to date...)

*not sure is the other 20% of the hourly paid workers are on different terms or not... i would assume that closed shops etc are unlikely to be legal in the US so that employees who don't join the union get the same terms, but as i'm not sure i've left them out of the equation ....

i have to say that $27 an hour seems an extraordinarily high wage for a production line worker - and presumably there are benefits on top??

Delphi's 12,000 domestic retirees also face uncertainty. Delphi will continue to pay and fund its pension obligations, but a Delphi attorney told a bankruptcy judge in New York on Saturday that its retiree obligations are "unsustainable and will eventually sink the company."
At the end of 2004, Delphi had $4.3 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Delphi has sought some relief from GM, which spun off Delphi in 1999. As part of that deal, GM is liable for some of Delphi's pension obligations if Delphi is in bankruptcy. GM estimated Saturday that total could reach $11 billion.

seriously? they let companies fund pensions from their ongoing operations in the states??

US bankruptcy laws seem to be very much for the benefit of the management

[Lothar5150]

In the 21st Century labor competes on a global scale just like capitol. Manufacturing is temporarily going overseas and it will eventually return. However, when it returns it will be equal to agriculture in the number of jobs it creates. People need to accept that there is a new economic paradigm the same as when our economy went from agrarian to industrial.

Hopefully our next President will step up and create a new, New Deal and create the educational opportunities people need to survive the transformation.

[BillA]

"US bankruptcy laws seem to be very much for the benefit of the management"
for sure, this is after all corporate America
what was ever the rational behind permitting unfunded pension liabilities ?
corporate America literally ripping off their retired workers
and this has been visible, and ignored, for years - both of the lying parties are culpable

hey pH, what happened to responsible capitalism ?
an oxymoron I'm beginning to believe

[Lothar5150]

Originally Posted by unregistered

"US bankruptcy laws seem to be very much for the benefit of the management"
for sure, this is after all corporate America
what was ever the rational behind permitting unfunded pension liabilities ?
corporate America literally ripping off their retired workers
and this has been visible, and ignored, for years - both of the lying parties are culpable

hey pH, what happened to responsible capitalism ?
an oxymoron I'm beginning to believe

I agree with you about the pensions. That part of corporate bankruptcy laws needs to fixed. The real crime is that they recently reduced consumer bankruptcy protection. So corporations slime out of responsibilities and consumers who loose everything in a hurricane are not protected…but this is what happens when the Republican Party has too much power for too long. To be balanced the Democrats create there own set of problems when the are in office too long. Time for a purge to get things back in balance.

[ricecrispi]

Reading about this bankruptcy, it's like the new version of creative accounting loopholes. It's just 100% all legal because they make their case infront of a judge.

Padding bonus, 10% share of the company, and getting bigger severance pay while cutting payroll and pension when they are running the company into the ground? Very creative way to get what they want but legally restructuring it into the bankrupcy filing.

Even the CFO got a new job into chief restructing officer when he should fired and lynched. I swear if you are incharge of company and loss that much money you should be hung from a tree, not promoted to a new position.

[ProHandyman]

The 12 years that the Republicans and the vocal minority neo-conservatives have had a heavy hand in government here, have only made the fat man richer, and the working class poorer. Anti-trust legislation has practically been erased, tax breaks are given to corporations to MAKE even more money!

Our patent laws, DMCA, yadda, yadda are all about corporate wealth, and the withering of "the people". Personal rights are being thrown out over corporate profits and greed. Grant you the American people don't realize that things for us were pretty good, but the current government is heading us into a fascist, corporate empire hated by the rest of the world.

Fiduciary responsibility to the share-holders is a joke, when the vast majority of "shares" are held by corporate leaders and board members! The only people they are looking out for are themselves!

What has this got to with Delphi? Many large International Corps are getting away with terrible things... when in fact the only mistakes taking place are in the board rooms! It's easy to blame unions, material cost, energy, taxes, etc.; until you look at the compensation given to the top brass, all while yanking it from the roots!

Unfortunately, corporations and nations are like trees: when the roots die from starvation and pruning, the tree will topple from it's own weight when a tempest strikes...

[Etacovda]

Originally Posted by ProHandyman

Our patent laws, DMCA, yadda, yadda are all about corporate wealth, and the withering of "the people". Personal rights are being thrown out over corporate profits and greed. Grant you the American people don't realize that things for us were pretty good, but the current government is heading us into a fascist, corporate empire hated by the rest of the world.

Indeed, agree with your post.

Whats more interesting about the above paragraph, is that a good number of americans seems completely oblivous to the fact that the rest of the world looks at them in a bad light.
Theres anti-bush/corporate american stuff in advertisements for pizza places and mobile phones... yes, its that widespread. I do not know ONE person that thinks bush/america is doing anything right at the moment in NZ.

[Lothar5150]

Originally Posted by Etacovda

Indeed, agree with your post.

Whats more interesting about the above paragraph, is that a good number of americans seems completely oblivous to the fact that the rest of the world looks at them in a bad light.
Theres anti-bush/corporate american stuff in advertisements for pizza places and mobile phones... yes, its that widespread. I do not know ONE person that thinks bush/america is doing anything right at the moment in NZ.

Its not that we don’t know...it’s just that it really does not affect us in any significant way. And lets face it you over reacted to the whole Nuke thing during the Cold War. So now we just say "well you know how those crazy Kiwis are"

[Etacovda]

Yeah, scarily enough, we think twice before trying to be world police. Hell, we're not even affilated with the 'war on terrorism' like aus. Theres a reason terrorists attacked america, and it wasnt because they 'felt like it'. I know people that LAUGHED when they saw the trade towers fall. Thats how 'liked' America is over here.

I bet a good 1/2 of the world thinks the same way, if not more...

[maxSaleen]

I know people that LAUGHED when they saw the trade towers fall. Thats how 'liked' America is over here.

I bet a good 1/2 of the world thinks the same way, if not more...

....that's why we keep so many friggin nukes. Accurate ones at that.

[Etacovda]

better policy is not to **** off the rest of the planet, one would think...

[jaydee]

Originally Posted by Etacovda

better policy is not to **** off the rest of the planet, one would think...

Yet the rest of the planet begs and borrows from the USA and depends on its imports and exports while bashing it...

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by jaydee

depends on its imports and exports

uh, trade is a two-way street...by its very nature. USA depends just as much on other countries importing and exporting as they do on the USA.

As for charity, while beggars definitely appreciate the handouts, they don't then have to like the person doing the handout if they then start telling them how to run their life, takes huge portions of their land, strip-mine and pollute it to hell and back (Union Carbide anyone) and then walk away.

As happens so, so often, USA is NEVER losing when it gives charity, it is typically repayed through various USA companies exploitation of that country's natural resources one hundred times over.

More often than not, USA charity amounts to distracting the hungry beggar at the front door of their shanty by handing out some food, all while 'round back they've breaking in and looting the beggar of what little possessions he has left.

[jaydee]

Originally Posted by Cathar

uh, trade is a two-way street...by its very nature. USA depends just as much on other countries importing and exporting as they do on the USA.

I don't think so. Sure our economy is much much better with trades but we would fair a hell of a lot better than most if all trades were cut off.

EDIT: To add to your second part added in after. Provide solid evidence of such.

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by jaydee

I don't think so. Sure our economy is much much better with trades but we would fair a hell of a lot better than most if all trades were cut off.

Sorry, that's just dreamland. Walk through ANY shop in the USA, ANY supermarket, heck almost anything anywhere. What is the ratio of USA made goods to foreign made goods. What is the price difference?

USA's financial position absolutely depends upon goods manufactured through cheaply sourced foreign labour. If USA closed its trade borders the price of most things in the country would multiply four-fold at the least, and the country would enter a depression faster than a USA made car falling apart.

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by jaydee

EDIT: To add to your second part added in after. Provide solid evidence of such.

Just for starters - one word: Iraq.

[Joe]

I just find it funny that if Walmart closed its doors it would even out the US trade deficit with China. So there you go Jaydee, just take down Walmart!

[jaydee]

Yeah Cathar I understand that. Yet the USA has more than enough resources to easily survive comfortable unlike many for the other countries that the USA keeps afloat by way of trade.

Iraq eh? I am leaving this conversation for it will not go anywhere good.

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by jaydee

Iraq eh? I am leaving this conversation for it will not go anywhere good.

Ok, don't like that one. Fair enough.

Union Carbide in India then? That link there is Union Carbide's take on it. Here's more recent events link, and link. Basically Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Corning, had an industrial accident due to cutting costs on safety measures and swamped a whole city of >1M people in pesticide gasses, killing tens of thousands, injuring hundreds of thousands, and then after paying $470M (~$900 per victim), walked away without cleaning any of it up. 20 years on and the area is still heavily polluted and toxic.

CIA setting up of opium poppy fields in Afghanistan to pay for paramilitary operations against the Russians, only to then use that as one of the "victory objectives" when destroying them in the recent Afghanistan war. link.

Exploitation of labour (resources)? Here's a more even-handed view than most => http://www.aworldconnected.org/article.php/525.html which makes a valiant attempt to equate what is one step away from slave labour to US companies as a "good thing for the development of a nation".

The list of similar offences goes on and on and on. Seems to me that the average USA citizen is quite blithefully unaware of what damage gets done in the name of the USA in the process of "bringing wealth and prosperity and democracy" to the rest of the world.