DEAR EDITOR:
This Valley is filled with broken promises. Over the years we have witnessed the bankruptcies of too many companies. We have neighbors who experienced the loss of jobs and benefits. But the bankruptcy of GM and Delphi broke new ground for broken promises. President Obama led GM into a managed bankruptcy.
In my opinion it is an obviously false claim that President Obama saved the American auto industry. Ford didnt need him. Chrysler, sold to Fiat, is considering moving Chrysler and Jeep manufacturing to Italy and China. At the direction of the clueless Obama auto board GM shed so many auto dealerships that more than 60,000 mechanics, sales people, and office workers lost their jobs. GM is set to invest 8 billion in China over the next ten years.
We know that during the Obama-led GM/Delphi bankruptcy the management retirees were cheated out of the supplement to their pensions. Not well known is that the older IUE/CWA union retirees were cheated out of their health insurance. President Obamas auto board forced the 65 and older IUE/CWA retiree into the Medicare system.
July 2, 2009, on the IUE-CWA.org web site Retirees are Road Kill in Rush to Sell GM: .... the Treasurys auto task force decided to strip more than 50,000 GM retirees of their right to health care. Harry Wilson, a member of the Treasurys auto task force, repeatedly stated that there was no commercial necessity in picking up the liability for retiree health care for members of non-UAW unions.
At the Warren Amphitheater, on July 29, 2009, IUE-CWA Staff Representative Robert Sutton confirmed that the Obama auto board was responsible for the loss of the IUE/CWA retirees health care. Rep. Sutton said that as a condition of GM borrowing TARP money GM had to ask permission from Treasury for any expenditure over $100,000. When GM asked to transfer money to fund the IUE/CWA health care VEBA the auto board refused to give permission for the transfer.
Broken promises and boasting dont earn a vote.
John A. Richards
Warren