Miller said that she once worked at a similar plant nearby.
“I worked at Delphi’s Needmore Road operation as a human resources manager in 2008 when the plant was permanently closed,” she said. “I lost my job and I was forced to retire.”
Tom Rose, another salaried Delphi retiree, told The Daily Caller this plant is one of seven that once thrived in Dayton.
“Six of them are closed,” said Rose, “and the seventh one only has 200 people working at it.”
When she was forced into retirement, Miller thought she had the pension she worked her whole life to earn to fall back on. Even so, she went on to start her own business to supplement it.
“I am now a certified personal coach,” she said. “I started my own business … in 2009. Being just 57, I knew I needed to start a new career to earn additional money to support myself and my family.”
The recession made it “challenging” for Miller to get her business off the ground, but what really hurt her was the “decision by her president’s Auto Task Force to top off the pensions of union members” — but not hers and those of the other salaried Delphi retirees.
When the dust settled on the auto bailout, the 20,000 discontinued pensions all belonged to non-unionized retirees. The Obama administration is notably close — both politically and financially — to organized labor. Coincidence or not, the result left a sour taste in the mouths of those left out in the cold.
Hundreds of them cheered as Miller said the Obama administration’s moves that ended up “throw[ing] the Delphi salaried retirees and our families to the wolves” were a “stunning abuse of power.”
“I worked for 22 years for GM and then nine more for Delphi to earn my pension,” she said.
“For me and my fellow retirees, the burden of trying to figure out how to make ends meet gets heavier every day, as we struggle to pay our bills without the pension dollars we worked so long and hard to earn.”
Miller believes Obama has failed to represent Americans who didn’t have union bosses arguing on their behalf.
“Rather than being a president to all people, President Obama decided to let his henchmen exclude from justice those who weren’t politically connected enough to him,” she said, to booming applause.
“Mr. President,” she said, speaking as if the president could hear her from some nearby invisible chair, “the Delphi salaried retirees are members of the same middle class you talk so much about wanting to help. Your actions have crippled us financially at a time in our lives when we can’t recoup the losses you have chosen to inflict upon us.”
“President Obama, you have had three years to fix this grave injustice,” she went on. “But neither you nor anyone who works for you has lifted a finger to remedy this unjust financial burden you chose to permanently place on our shoulders.”
“Is this still America?”
