• In this Issue >
  • Features
    • From the President
    • Is that a FLEX-FUEL you're driving?
    • Devastating news
    • Face time
    • UAW legislative priorities for 2006
    • UAW delegates meet with congressman
    • Workers Memorial Day
    • The Dangers below
    • Connecting dots, to Delphi’s Miller
    • Life on Line
  • Union Front
    • Company postpones filing court motions
    • Workers authorize strike
    • Anti-union group grasping at straws
    • Dana workers choose the UAW
    • Election results may be key to passage
    • Member minute
    • Organizing Roundup
  • Departments
    • From the Readers
    • Just the Facts
    • World of Work
    • UAW 101
    • Safer Work
    • Still Solid
    • Skilled Trades
    • Workers' Words
    • Solidarity Index / Past Issues

Connecting dots, to Delphi’s Miller

The Sago coal mine disaster hits closer to home than many autoworkers might think. That connection comes through billionaire financier Wilbur L. Ross, Delphi CEO Robert S. “Steve” Miller and Ross’ newly incorporated International Auto Components Group (IACG).

W.L. Ross & Co. controls billions of dollars in investment funds. The Ross method of operation is to buy (at bargain prices) and consolidate bankrupt companies in the same business. That’s how he created the International Steel Group (ISG) – buying Bethlehem Steel, LTV and Weirton Steel.

Those companies were in or had just emerged from bankruptcy when Ross bought them. Here’s what happened in those bankruptcies, according to writer Mark Reutter in his book “Making Steel”:

• 95,000 Bethlehem retirees lost $380 million in health care benefits between March 31, 2003, and Oct. 25, 2004.

• Over the same period, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) paid out $500 million in reduced pensions to Bethlehem retirees.

• The PBGC paid about $200 million in reduced pensions to 40,000 LTV retirees and 10,000 Weirton retirees.

Ross sold the suddenly valuable ISG to Lakshmi Mittal for $4.5 billion, creating the world’s biggest steel company. And Delphi’s Miller was at the helm at Bethlehem when the sale to Ross went down.

Ross used similar tactics to create the International Coal Group (which owns the company that operates Sago Mine) and the International Textile Group. Now Ross has billions ready to gobble up auto suppliers for IACG. He’s already:

• Created a partnership with Lear for a global joint venture.

• Bought up some of the debt of Collins and Aikman.

• Bought Safety Components International, a South Carolina-based airbag manufacturer.

• Bought a majority stake in Asian suppliers Nikko Electronic and Ohizumi.

• Bought 25 percent of France’s Oxford Automotive.

• Inquired about buying parts of Delphi Corp. and Visteon.

IACG could become the next big thing in auto suppliers – but only if certain companies are allowed to rip up union contracts and dump their obligations onto American taxpayers.

Larry Gabriel