If you cut wages by two-thirds, that creates a class of people that can't afford to go to Wal-Marts. If other industries do this, America will have a far smaller middle class, and the whole economy in the 21st Century begins to unravel.
Bankruptcy is allowing airlines to emerge with a clean slate, but it's bad news for workers. Pensions will be affected, and it will mean lower wages and probably fewer jobs.
Miller has clearly chosen bankruptcy over collective bargaining to restructure the company. Delphi is using a bankruptcy judge to begin moving in the direction of Chinese wages and benefits.
The pain and surprise may come when Delphi wages are cut and it sets a pattern of pressing down on wages to succeed competitively, ... It reverses the success story of the American economy, which has always been that U.S. firms paid the most.
I think this case is, in fact, a watershed. I think what it does is -- in the most dramatic way we've seen to date -- it introduces the wages of the global economy into Main Street in Michigan, Ohio and elsewhere,
Delphi has essentially said: 'We need competitive wages.' Those wages currently are being set in China, not Flint, (Michigan).