Auto industry retirees

Auto industry touted by Obama still rubs some industry retirees the wrong way

By Steve Brown

Published October 31, 2012

FoxNews.com

President Obama never fails to mention the billions in federal dollars pumped into the U.S. auto industry when campaigning in Ohio.
At a recent campaign stop in Dayton, the president describes the bailout this way: "I bet on American workers. I bet on American manufacturing. I would do it again because that bet has paid off for Ohio and for America in a big way."
Former Delphi plant manager Tom Rose has a different opinion about the bailout: "It’s good press. It’s good politics, but it’s only one side of the story.”
Rose and tens of thousands of other Delphi retirees were nervous in 2009 when the company was trudging its way through bankruptcy. So a lot of questions were asked, like how’s our pension looking?

The answer, says Rose, was a thumbs-up from management, which said the pension was well funded.
And then, it wasn’t.
Delphi abruptly cancelled its employee pensions and turned over what remained in them to the federal government to administer.
It was the nightmare scenario for Delphi retirees. The monthly payments that were to be their financial bedrock through retirement years were slashed. The cuts were staggering, ranged from 30 to 70 percent.