We’ve been following the saga at Delphi Corp. for many months, in large part because it speaks volumes about the ability of corporations to use the bankruptcy laws to impose crippling wage concessions on working people.

Yesterday, the UAW (which is holding its convention this week in Las Vegas) reached a deal with Delphi to offer buyouts to workers who want to leave the company–but really the buyouts are not much of a choice: either take the buyout or get canned down the road or watch your pay get cut down to a level that will leave you, eventually, in debt and struggling to make ends meet. Not much of a choice.

What’s made this possible, in my opinion, is the hammer Delphi has in the form of the legal system in this country. The bankruptcy law allows corporations to cancel its unions contracts–even if executives like Delphi’s Robert Miller continue to pay themselves millions of dollars in pay and benefits.

Here’s a bit from The New York Times piece:

Parts Supplier Reaches Buyout Deal With U.A.W.

By MICHELINE MAYNARD and NICK BUNKLEY

DETROIT, June 9 — The Delphi Corporation, the auto parts supplier, reached an agreement on Friday with the United Automobile Workers union and General Motors that offered buyouts to all of its 24,000 workers and reduced the possibility of a crippling strike.

The plan, which G.M. will finance, expands a plan announced in March that covered 13,000 Delphi workers, and comes on the eve of the union’s leadership convention, which begins Monday in Las Vegas.

Agreement on the buyouts allows the two companies and the union to focus negotiations on other crucial issues like the level of wage and benefit cuts at Delphi, the amount G.M. is willing to pay for buyouts and to subsidize workers’ wages, and the number of workers who will be left at Delphi, once the cuts are made.