Senate takes no action on bill that would restore Delphi pensions

Jan. 2—The year started out hopeful for Delphi Corporation retirees who would have their pensions restored after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Susan Muffley Act. But 2022 ended with the U.S. Senate failing to take action on the bill and did not include it in its year-end omnibus spending bill.

That means 20,000 salaried retirees of Delphi Corporation, including over 4,000 in Indiana, will have to wait at least another year.

Bruce Gump, Delphi Salaried Retirees Association board chairman, called the decision by the Senate a "terrible blow to retirees."

"Despite our best efforts since House passage in July — and that includes nearly 100,000 emails, phone calls and meetings with Senate members or staffers — it appears opponents failed to understand this was not a bailout," Gump said in a prepared statement. "The government took away our pension money in 2009. They invested it and made a lot of money on our assets over the past 13 years. They broke it, but they failed in their responsibilities to fix it."

The salaried workers' pensions were cut by up to 70% when they were handed over to the U.S. Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) following General Motors filing for bankruptcy in 2009.

However, GM's hourly retirees, who were represented by the United Auto Workers, did not have their pensions cut.

Congress did end up approving a special health tax credit for the salaried retirees, which in some cases paid up to 72% of their health care costs, but the loss of health care and life insurance benefits devastated many households, causing some to have to work longer.

The Susan Muffley Act, introduced in March by Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee, would have restored the retirees' pensions, as well as given them a lump-sum payment to cover the amount of money they lost since 2009 from their reduced payouts. The lump sum would come with 6% interest on top.

The bill passed the House 254-175. Five out of the nine Indiana U.S. representatives voted in favor of the bill, including Republicans Jim Baird and Victoria Spartz, who together represent most of Kokomo and Howard and Tipton counties. The late Jackie Walorski, a Republican who represented Miami County, voted against the bill.

If it had passed both chambers of Congress, the bill would have paid out a total $612 million this year to retirees, according to the cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office. With around 14% of the nation's Delphi retirees living in the Kokomo area, a significant portion of that money would have come to the region.

Gump said the DSRA is not giving up and is considering introducing the bill again this year.

"I am proud of my fellow retirees," Gump said in a statement. "They have never given up. We are not done. We have more work to do. We refuse to quit. Persistence and truth conquer all."

The DSRA has tried for 13 years to restore the salaried workers' pensions.

In 2020, the issue of restoring Delphi retirees' pensions made national news when former President Donald Trump said he was considering intervening in the more than decade-long struggle.

Trump issued a presidential memorandum that year urging leaders in his administration to seek to restore the full pensions of salaried retirees of Delphi. Peter Navarro, Trump's assistant and director of trade and manufacturing policy, said at the time that making retirees' pensions whole was a "high priority" for the president.

However, no action was taken.

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich.