Members of United Auto Workers Local 2195 voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike against Delphi Corp. if a U.S. bankruptcy court grants the company's request to reject its labor contracts.
In voting Tuesday, 96 percent of Local 2195 members at the Decatur plant voted in favor of a strike.
"We're being threatened," Donald Prince, a 21-year Delphi/General Motors employee who voted in favor of the strike, told The Decatur Daily. "People here have a lifestyle the company is saying they have to give up. They have kids in college. They have retirement plans."
Lawyers for the United Auto Workers union have argued that letting the company cancel its contracts would give Delphi an overwhelming and unfair advantage, allowing it to force through deep wage cuts and rob its workers of long-promised benefits.
Delphi has said it would not immediately cancel the agreements even if authorized to do so by the court.
"People are worried," said Local 2195 President Terry Scruggs, who plans to retire under Delphi's attrition plan for high-cost workers. "No one here wants to strike, but we will if we need to."