Obama Administration Kicked Non-Union Pensioners Of Delphi To The Curb Because They Were Non-Union

The Daily Caller had an interesting revelation today about the government bailout of GM and Chrysler that sacrificed the first-in-line rights of bondholders so that union workers could be made whole. Indiana Democrats and their Senate candidate, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, have excoriated Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock because he challenged a bankruptcy settlement brokered by the Obama administration that screwed over Indiana government pensioners whose pension funds had been invested in Chrysler bonds that had preferential rights in the event of a bankruptcy. Mourdock contested a decision that short-changed preferential bondholders, including Indiana's pension benefits, to favor the union workers, essentially turning bankruptcy law on its head. The Daily Caller has obtained e-mails that prove that the Obama administration lied when it told Congress that the independent Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation had made the decision to terminate the pension plan of 20,000 non-union Delphi workers as part of the deal.

Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company. The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions . . .

The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those non-union pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law.

Delphi, a General Motors company, is one of the world’s largest automotive parts manufacturers. Twenty thousand of its workers lost nearly their entire pensions when the government bailed out GM. At the same time, Delphi employees who were members of the United Auto Workers union saw their pensions topped off and made whole

Essentially, the pensions of non-union workers were deemed expendable while those of union pensioners were deemed sacrosanct. What will Joe Donnelly and the Indiana Democrats have to say about that? I'm guessing not much. They know who butters their bread.