By Doug Cunningham

Delphi, America's largest auto parts supplier, has laid out in harsh detail its demands to slash the wages of its UAW workers by more than 60 percent - to as low as $9.50 an hour. UAW Local 292 in Kokomo, Indiana distributed a copy of the proposal. The UAW Local's document said "No UAW leader or member would agree to this ridiculous proposal. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger and vice president Richard Shoemaker are outraged by this proposal." A UAW member in Kokomo said he would lose everything he has if this huge cut was accepted. City University of New York Professor Stanley Aronowitz says this is a battering ram being used by Delphi to break the back of the UAW and to demolish the Midwestern manufacturing wages and benefits structure built by unions over decades of struggle.

[Stanley Aronowitz] : "I think is the battering ram for not only Delphi but for General Motors and the other producers of automobiles in the United States."

Aronowitz says the UAW has the strength to fight this and should - even if it means that Delphi goes out of business. This is a crossroads, Aronowitz says, a fundamental challenge to the UAW.