[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5021]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE DELPHI MYTH

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time 
of the gentleman from New Jersey.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, a number of Members of Congress from the 
Democratic side have come together in a process known as an e-hearing 
where we have solicited from people across the country their concerns 
in particular about the auto industry, trade law, labor law and Delphi 
Corporation filing for bankruptcy.
  This evening, a number of us will come before this House to make a 
presentation on behalf of people who participated in the e-hearing and 
to make clear the direction this country must go in with respect to our 
trade law, labor law and with respect to the Delphi case.
  I want to begin by thanking the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller) who is the ranking member on our committee for his work in 
helping to organize this hearing, and hopefully he will be here himself 
to participate, but you will be hearing shortly from the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) as well as 
other Members with respect to the results of our e-hearing.
  Much of the talk surrounding the current crisis facing U.S. 
automakers revolves around the toll that wages, health insurance and 
pensions place on companies. A loss of these benefits would be a 
devastating blow for workers and their families. Consider what my 
constituent, Betty Payer of Parma, Ohio, said during our committee's 
recent e-hearing.
  She said, ``The way the auto industry is going affects us in so many 
different ways. If my husband was to lose his job, we would not be able 
to raise our children properly. I don't even know how we would be able 
to give them the proper education. We can barely afford to buy them 
clothes and get them the things they truly need the way it is. My 
oldest son is getting ready to turn 3 and he needs speech therapy and 
physical therapy the way it is. Without insurance, we would not be able 
to take him to those because we cannot afford to pay for them. He has 
to go once a week until they see an improvement in him.''
  That is from Betty Payer of Parma, Ohio.
  But the discussion about the auto industry is not served when certain 
individuals mischaracterize the actual labor costs. There is a myth put 
forward by the CEO of Delphi about the overpaid auto workers. He is 
claiming that $65 per hour is a typical wage Delphi pays for blue color 
labor. The problem is Delphi doesn't pay $65 an hour. Rather, this 
figure is a creation of Delphi's media consultants and it lumps 
together all of Delphi's labor costs and payments to unemployed and 
retired workers, but falsely allocates them only to Delphi's much 
smaller workforce. That inflates the average labor cost.

                              {time}  1945

  Actual average wage for current Delphi workers is about $23 per hour. 
So whatever Delphi's financial problems, one thing that is not a cause 
is workers earning $65 per hour. And it is misleading of Delphi's CEO 
to say otherwise.
  But bad faith characterizes the Delphi CEO. It was bad faith that he 
filed motions in bankruptcy court to break his labor contracts. 
Negotiations with the union had not reached an impasse. Rather, the 
opposite was true. GM and Delphi had just reached an agreement with the 
union on a Special Attrition Program. Don't you think that one 
agreement could lead to another?
  If Delphi's CEO is notorious for his drive to beat down the wages and 
benefits workers have won through their unions and impose a wage scale 
that is more in line with that of China, then he has been greatly 
helped by the official policy of the United States, both in terms of 
trade law and labor law.
  We have a trade policy that actually permits foreign based companies 
to export an infinite number of goods and services to the United 
States, with no expectation that goods and services made in the United 
States will find buyers overseas. So companies locate in low wage 
countries, such as China, and export without limit to the U.S. 
Predictably, the U.S. is, in turn, suffering from a record-sized 
widening trade deficit with China and the world. Our trade deficit is 
approaching $750 billion. Workers are threatened by plant closures, and 
plant owners can plausibly threaten they are going to move to Mexico 
where they can find lower wages, lower legal standards, and export to 
the U.S. what they used to manufacture in the U.S. What is needed is 
balance. There should be some kind of a balance between our imports and 
our exports. What we import from China, for example, should be roughly 
in line with the value of what we export to China. Our trade policies 
should be guided by what you could call a principle of reciprocity.
  We also have a labor policy that enables foreign-owned companies to 
threaten and intimidate American workers when they try to organize 
themselves into unions. The leading foreign automakers have plants in 
the U.S., but they are all non union, thanks to the anti worker slant 
of U.S. law. That gives them an unfair advantage over the unionized 
American auto companies. Why do we tolerate giving Honda and Toyota 
such an advantage in our own country? If workers were allowed join 
unions, as they do in Canada, when a majority signed cards attesting 
that that is their wish, foreign auto companies would be less able to 
squash an organizing effort. Then GM and Toyota would be on a level 
playing field as far as labor costs were concerned.
  Here in Congress, we cannot compel automakers to design cars people 
want to buy. We hope that they can find the people to design such 
vehicles. Clearly, the American automakers have made serious errors. 
Auto workers didn't make the errors because they are told what cars to 
make.
  But we can make sure that the playing field is level so there is fair 
competition in the auto industry.
  Our trade policy, Mr. Speaker, and I am speaking of NAFTA, CAFTA, 
WTO, for starters, has had a consistent effect. Know what that effect 
has been? To deindustrialize the United States. We are losing our 
industry, not because of the laws of nature or the invisible hand, but 
due to trade policy established here in Congress.
  Our labor law is also responsible. American-owned companies are 
losing market share to foreign-owned transplants because of the 
viciously anti-worker environment this Congress has unfortunately 
established.
  Mr. Speaker, I look forward to hearing my other colleagues about what 
we can do to protect American industry and American auto workers.

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