ABC reporter Dean Reynolds promised A Closer Look at the woes of
domestic auto parts maker Delphi, but instead zoomed in on a story
portraying union workers as victims and corporate executives as
villains. His December 27 World News Tonight story blamed Delphi,
which filed for bankruptcy this year, for securing pay bonuses for
company officials while driving the company into the wall. However,
Reynolds failed to document how the United Auto Workers (UAW) union
has been at the wheel as the companys bottom line has driven off a
cliff.
The story focused on a Delphi shipping clerk from
Indiana who may lose his job or take a cut in pay after a round of
layoffs. Reynolds didnt report the generous compensation Delphi
workers receive as part of the UAW agreement. Instead of dropping an
actual dollar figure, Reynolds aired a brief sound bite of Delphi
CEO Robert Miller complaining about his companys labor costs being
double or triple that of his competitors.
A November 26 story by Jason Roberson in the
Detroit Free Press
reported that Delphi workers earn on average $76-an-hour in pay and
benefits combined. With a 40-hour work week, thats
$158,080-per-year. By contrast the
median U.S. income in 2004 was
$44,389.
Roberson noted that in mid-November, Delphi announced
it wanted to scale pay down to $35-an-hour ($72,800-per-year) for
UAW workers. The pay cut request has since been withdrawn by
Delphi.
Voicing over footage of foreign auto plant workers,
Reynolds said Americans were competing with workers drawing much
lower wages in other places. Reynolds failed to mention many of
these other places are factories located in the United States
which command good wages and benefits. According to the June 22,
2005 New York Times, those areas include the South because many
Southern states do not require workers to unionize.
The Times article said actual salaries were only
slightly lower in the foreign owned plants. However, when health
care and other benefits were taken into account, union workers
earned about $55 an hour, nearly 15 percent more than nonunion
workers.
When Delphi wasnt paying union workers to work, it was
paying them to not work. An October 17 story by Bryce Hoffman in the
Detroit News
focused on a jobs bank which started in the 1980s as an auto
industry concession to the UAW for allowing increased automation of
plant operations.
Delphi has 4,000 workers in the program, according to
Hoffmans article. Delphis CEO Robert S. Miller told the Detroit
News that the jobs bank cost his company $400 million-per-year.
Automotive News
reported on December 25 that UAW leaders are steadfastly refusing to
agree to Delphis request to reform the so-called jobs bank.
While Reynolds ignored the $400 million spent on 4,000
non-working union members, he lamented that Delphi worked out a
bonus payment plan costing potentially hundreds of millions of
dollars to retain top executives before capping off his piece by
showing his featured shipping clerk, a UAW member, worried about
losing his house.
The Business & Media Institute has
previously documented how the media have presented a
one-sided
coverage of labor union scuffles with corporate management.
ABC Reporter Portrays Union as Victim, Delphi as Villain
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