UAW members support Delphi pact in early returns

By David Bailey

CHICAGO, June 28 (Reuters) - A United Auto Workers member vote on wage and benefit cuts for bankrupt auto parts maker Delphi Corp. DPHIQ.PK has seen strong support from several locals, but met stiff opposition at one New York unit.

The UAW leadership is expected to release results on Friday of the member vote of its numerous local units on the deal, which includes wage and benefit cuts and eventual plant closings that Delphi has said it must have in order to exit bankruptcy.

The member vote is cumulative for the full 17,000 UAW members at Delphi, but some local units disclosed results or at least a broad indication of support on Thursday.

The complex agreement may pit some 13,000 recent hires against 4,000 long-term employees who are being asked to take the brunt of wage and benefit concessions. It also designates plants for retention, sale, or closure and future jobs that could make the support vary greatly among the units.

The Buffalo News reported on Thursday afternoon that Local 686 members in Lockport, New York, voted 1,107 to 274 against the deal. That local represents about 1,200 long-time Delphi employees and 1,000 recent hires.

In Rochester, New York, Local 1097 members voted 707 to 378 to support the agreement, local officials said. The plants in Rochester and Lockport both are among the four that Delphi would retain under the deal.

Local 696 in Dayton, Ohio, voted 428 to 98 in favor of the tentative agreement, which gives the unit guarantees for about 750 jobs. About two-thirds of the roughly 750 members are recent hires, local President Joe Buckley said.

"It's a tough to ask people to take the wage cuts this agreement calls for," Buckley said. "The alternative is a labor dispute. I don't know that a labor dispute would assure us job security for our members."

Local 699 in Saginaw, Michigan, voted about 83 percent in favor of the deal, out of 1,775 votes cast, while members of Local 969 in Columbus, Ohio, one of several sites to be wound down, voted 209 to 21 for the deal, local leaders said.

In Flint, Michigan, Local 651 members voted about 94 percent in favor of the deal. The Flint local also would have about 1,000 guaranteed jobs under the agreement. It currently has about 1,100 members, about 950 of them recent hires.

VOTE ON A FAST TRACK

The ratification vote was put on a fast track following the announcement of an agreement last Friday. Plants shut down for two weeks at the beginning of July.

The deal would remove a major barrier to Delphi's reorganization and the threat of a strike that could cripple the company and former parent General Motors Corp. GM.N, Delphi's biggest customer.

The members have to decide whether to accept a deal that slashes wages and benefits for the most experienced workers, and permits plant closings that will lead to thousands of job cuts even as it details some business guarantees from GM.

The deal calls for Delphi to retain four UAW-represented plants, turn over three to GM or a third party, sell four and wind down or consolidate 10.

Analysts see member approval of the deal as likely, though it has opposition. Union dissidents released a text of the agreement and urged workers to reject it.

Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy in October 2005, had argued that it needed to slash wages and benefits in the United States to be competitive with other auto parts makers. The company had inherited much higher wages in the GM spinoff.

Delphi had a far different UAW-represented work force when it entered bankruptcy. A buyout and early retirement program in 2006 pared the long-term employee numbers and allowed Delphi to hire replacements at lower wages and benefits.

The agreement would cut wages for long-term employees from about $27 per hour to the roughly $14 to $18.50 per hour of the recent hires.

To make the wage cuts more palatable, long-term employees would receive $105,000 over three years and Delphi would extend offers of buyouts, retirement or returning to work at GM.

Delphi has sought steep concessions from the UAW since before it filed for bankruptcy and early Delphi demands would have cut production wages to about $10 per hour.

The deal, which requires U.S. bankruptcy court approval, also would meet one hurdle for. A $3.4 billion equity investment plan remains contingent on Delphi reaching final agreements with its unions and GM.