DETROIT –(ENEWSPF)–November 5, 2012. NBC News left out critical information regarding Delphi employee pensions in a Nov. 4 report, failing to report that a 1999 contract, not favoritism, is what made pensions whole for some employees. All Delphi employees had their pensions terminated and put into Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), and only workers under a 1999 contract that required GM to cover Delphi pension shortfalls had their pensions made whole.
“These workers are right to be angry about their pensions, but they have misdirected their anger. The Obama Administration saved more than a million jobs through the auto rescue, and automakers and states alike are stronger for it,” said UAW president Bob King. “What workers may not know is that Mitt Romney not only opposed the auto rescue, but also profited off the misfortune of Delphi workers.”
NBC News made no mention of Mitt Romney’s stake in Delphi Corp. Romney profited from his family’s investment in Delphi at the expense of the Delphi workers, and The Nation recently reported that the Romney family personally profited by at least $15.3 million from the auto loans of 2009.
Romney’s investor group increased profits to gain a 3,000 to 4,000 percent return on investment, making $4.2 billion. If they lived up to pension obligations by designating 25 percent of profits to pensions, they still would have made a 2,000 to 3,000 percent return on their investment and more than $3 billion in profits.
These auto rescue profits have not gone unnoticed. The UAW and a coalition of labor and good government organizations filed an ethics complaint on Nov. 1 with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics calling for an investigation into Mitt Romney’s noncompliance with the Ethics in Government Act to compel him to either disclose his investments in Delphi or divest them. The coalition believes that Romney’s undisclosed stock holdings create serious conflicts of interest. Yet Romney’s June 1, 2012, Public Financial Disclosure Report to the Office of Government Ethics did not reveal this windfall because he did not disclose the underlying holdings of his private equity and limited partnership funds.
Tens of thousands of supporters have signed a petition asking Romney to come clean about profits made in the auto rescue and how he made a fortune off the misfortune of others. Sign the petition here.
Source: uaw.org
