No, I’m not referring to the indictments in the Plame affair (as I write this in the a.m., nothing announced other than it looks as if Rove might skate and Scooter will take the hit). It’s Delphi’s next shot at the UAW.

You may remember it was the bankruptcy filing of Delphi that triggered the demand on the part of General Motors–which under its spin-off agreement with Delphi would absorb many of Delphi’s liabilities–that the UAW agree to health care cuts in its members’ benefits. The Wall Street Journal is reporting today (subscription required) that Delphi is not only demanding that wages be slashed from an average of $25 an hour to $9 an hour (!!!). It also is aiming at the heart of the UAW’s ability to keep the work union by demanding big-time rights to outsource the work.

It’s one thing to have to sell painful concessions to your members but quite another thing to consent to a demand that will rip the heart out of the union. And if the UAW doesn’t agree to these provisions, the company will seek to terminate the union contracts on January 17th.

I don’t see how the labor movement can stand by and allow Delphi to use the bankruptcy court, to toss away its union contracts without igniting some major disruptions. Is Delphi the new PATCO moment?

Here’s the beginning of the article:

Delphi Seeks
Far-Reaching Givebacks
By JEFFREY MCCRACKEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 28, 2005

Delphi Corp. is demanding concessions from the United Auto Workers beyond wage and benefits cuts that could, if implemented, undermine its ability to organize new members and hasten the dwindling of the once-dominant union.

In an offer put to the UAW on Oct. 21, the largest U.S. auto-parts supplier — which filed for bankruptcy-court protection earlier this month — said it wants to reduce wages from an average of $25 an hour to around $9. But a summary of the company’s demands reviewed by The Wall Street Journal shows Delphi also wants greater leeway to hire nonunion temporary and contract workers without union input and to buy materials and parts from nonunion subsuppliers.

Delphi also is proposing to move large numbers of traditional union jobs outside the union’s protection; jobs such as machine repairmen, carpenters and tool builders all would be outsourced to other companies.”