The top executives at Delphi Corporation, the nation's largest automobile supplier, will take voluntary pay cuts until the firm emerges from bankruptcy, the company announced today.

The move comes in response to fierce criticism of Delphi's executive pay plan, which would have provided generous compensation to the company's officers as it headed into bankruptcy. Union officials had complained about the plan at a time when they were being asked to accept cutbacks in pay and benefits.

Delphi, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Oct. 8, said its chairman and chief executive, Robert S. Miller, will reduce his base salary from $1.5 million to $1 annually beginning Jan. 1, 2006. Delphi's president, Rodney O'Neal, will take a 20 percent cut, while other executives will waive 10 percent of their salaries beginning next year, according to a press release on the company's Web site.

"I have given the subject of executive compensation a great deal of thought and planned to announce a reduction in my own compensation, as I had previously suggested," Mr. Miller said in a statement. "In addition to my annual salary of $1, I will continue to receive zero bonus, zero severance, zero pension plan, and will have no other similar entitlements whatsoever. While I remain concerned about the below-market compensation paid to many of our key executives, Delphi's transformation message must be unambiguous and marked indelibly by the commitment of Delphi's leadership. To that end, Delphi's officers who were at Delphi when I joined, have unilaterally volunteered to give back 10-20 percent of their base pay - a clear indication of their commitment."

Delphi, which had been a division of General Motors until 1999, is seeking to cut pay for its 34,000 unionized workers by as much as two-thirds, to as little as $10 an hour. Union officials have said that at those wages, workers could no longer afford to buy the new cars that contained the parts they produce. In its bankruptcy filing, Delphi also said that it would seek to stop paying health care and life insurance benefits for its 12,000 American retirees. G.M. had agreed to pay those benefits in the event of bankruptcy.

Delphi's union workers were particularly embittered when Delphi made an 11th-hour move, a day ahead of its bankruptcy filing, to sweeten substantially the severance packages available to 21 top managers. The executives were to get cash and up to a 10 percent stake in the reorganized company, whose restructuring is to be completed by mid-2007. Delphi said the offer was a necessary step to retain its executives.

Delphi, based in Troy, Mich., filed for bankruptcy after it failed to obtain financial aid from General Motors, or wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers, which represents many of the company's workers.

Currently, Delphi's American workers make about $65 to $70 an hour including benefits, more than 10 times, at least, the compensation of workers doing similar jobs in Mexico and China. Delphi wants trims that would take that below $20 an hour, in part by cutting wages to $10 to $12 an hour from $26 to $30.

In addition to the salary cuts announced today, Delphi said compensation arrangements for its other executives would be decided at bankruptcy court as part of the company's Chapter 11 reorganization.