Dana Corp.

Toledo, OH: (Jun-21-07) Dana Corp., a bankrupt Toledo auto parts producer, and its two largest unions have been embroiled in a legal battle over retiree health care programs. Dana Corp. is close to a settlement that would eliminate its $1.5 billion obligation for retiree health care but would avert a catastrophic benefit cutoff for union retirees. As part of the settlement, the company would commit to $700 million in total payments to a trust fund that would subsidize the cost of health coverage for current and future retirees. It is yet to be estimated how the plan would curtail health benefits for the company's 16,400 current union retirees, many of whom are not old enough to be eligible for government coverage under the Medicare program. The company has up to 1,400 retirees from a Toledo plant that shut shop 15 years ago.

A settlement would affect many more Dana plants than originally believed, including Lima, Fort Wayne and Marion, IN; Pottstown, PA; Auburn Hills, MI; Elizabethtown and Henderson, KY, and Longview, TX. The two unions represent 5,300 workers at Dana plants in the United States. The two sides have settled on a two-tiered wage system under which new employees and possibly some very recent hires would receive $4 to $7 an hour less than veteran workers in some factories, the Local 903 summary states. Pay of current workers, however, would not be trimmed under the proposal. [TOLEDO BLADE: DANA RETIREMENT]

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Published on Jun-28-07