A bi-partisan group asked House and Senate leaders to investigate whether the U.S. Treasury was involved in cutting the pensions of former Delphi Corp. salaried employees during the bailout of General Motors.
The group of House and Senate leaders in a letter asked Congressman Darrell Issa and Sen. Joseph Lieberman to request additional documents from the Department of Treasury and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. on matters pertaining to the termination of Delphi salaried retiree pensions in 2009 in the federal government's bailout of GM.
''As you may know, the pensions of Delphi Salaried Retirees were significantly reduced in the aftermath of the bailout, while their union counterparts were made whole,'' the legislators wrote in the letter released Thursday.
''These retirees, regardless of labor affiliation or not, spent their careers working alongside one another and should not be treated differently in their retirement. This decision of the Auto Task Force, Treasury, and the PBGC continues to affect roughly 20,000 current and future retirees across the nation."
Republican Sen. Rob Portman, Republican congressmen Bill Johnson, Mike Turner, Pat Tiberi and Steve Stivers, and Democrat Rep. Marcy Kaptor, all of of Ohio, were among those who signed the letter.
Turner, of Dayton, said earlier this week that he believes that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's role on the PBGC, as well as his role as a member of the president's Auto Task Force and as the head of the Treasury Department, placed him in a position to unfairly influence the corporation.
Willie Thorpe, IUE-CWA director, Region 7, responded to criticisms, saying there are a lot of misguided claims coming from the Romney campaign and Turner's office.
Thorpe was one of the IUE-CWA negotiators leading up to Delphi's 1999 split from General Motors.
"The Delphi salaried pension plan was handled according to the standard procedure that applied in 34 other corporate bankruptcies that year," Thorpe said in a prepared statement.
"President Obama made the correct decision to rescue the auto industry and the one in eight jobs it supports in Ohio. I am extremely sympathetic to those who lost pensions during the GM restructuring.''