DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — Ohio Congressman Mike Turner is joining other lawmakers in a push to restore pensions to former Delphi salaried employees.
During the 2009 recession, car parts manufacturer Delphi faced bankruptcy. The company was acquired by General Motors, which also faced financial hardship during that time. As part of GM’s bailout, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took trusteeship of Delphi employees’ pensions at the direction of the Obama Administration, according to Rep. Turner.
One group employed by Delphi was a group of 21,000 salaried employees, including those who worked at the company’s plant in Dayton. Retirement benefits for these employees included a single-employer pension. However, GM closed the plant and terminated the fully funded pension of the salaried employees.
The Susan Muffley Act made it out of the House during the last Congress, but did not gain Senate approval.
Named after the deceased spouse of a Delphi retiree, the “Susan Muffley Act” would provide backpay for the pension payments.
Now, lawmakers are reintroducing the bill, pushing to get it passed by both chambers and sent to President Biden’s desk. The bill would restore pensions for nearly 20,000 employees across several states.
“These are individuals who earned these pensions, and they planned their retirement based on those pensions. To have the White House having made decisions based upon who was in a union and who was not in a union, and then take their pensions away when they were fully funded, is absolutely unjust,” Rep. Turner said.
“It’s against everything that we believe when we look at the pension system. So, this is actually restoring integrity to the system by restoring pensions to these individuals who rightly earned them.”
The pensions were terminated in 2009. Turner said he believes this congress can get the bill passed and said that President Biden has indicated that he will sign it.
