Union officials have a chance to keep more jobs at local plants if costs can be cut.
By DON SHILLING
WARREN — Delphi Corp. has backed off its threat to close all its local plants, a union official said.
The auto parts supplier will keep 1,033 of its 3,800 hourly workers in the area, said Don Arbogast, shop chairman of International Union of Electrical Workers Local 717. More jobs could be preserved if the union can develop a plan to cut the costs of producing certain parts, Arbogast said.
"It was important to us that they recommit to this Valley, and they've done that," Arbogast said at a news conference Friday.
Union and community leaders were jolted recently when a Delphi official said all local Delphi Packard Electric plants could be shut down because the union was stalling contract talks.
Intense bargaining this week, however, has produced an agreement to a "footprint" for local operations, the union leader said.
A Delphi spokesman could not be reached to comment.
The agreement includes the same plants that Packard said it would keep earlier this year.
Which plants?
These are plastic molding plants in Cortland and Vienna, a cable production plant in the North River Road complex in Warren, a metal terminal plant in the same complex, and a plastic resin plant in Rootstown.
The company also agreed to allow the union to develop a plan to keep other work, such as some metal stamping, cable production and inside plant maintenance, Arbogast said.
The union will look at wage and benefit rates and changes to work rules to determine if it can make such products at the same cost as outside suppliers, Arbogast said. He wouldn't estimate how many jobs might be saved.
In agreement
Both management and union leaders agreed, however, that some work now in the Mahoning Valley cannot be retained because foreign plants can produce those parts at an extremely low cost, he said. Among the noncompetitive work is the making of battery cable, he added.
Yet to be decided is how Packard would find nearly 400 more workers to staff local plants. Delphi offered retirement and buyout incentives that were accepted by all but 659 of the local hourly workers.
How to hire additional workers and how much they would be paid will be the subjects of local and national negotiations.
Arbogast said the company pressured Local 717 to move more quickly on these issues, but he refused because some of them are part of a national contract.
Delphi has said it can't operate without new labor contracts that cut wages and benefits and modify work rules. It has asked a bankruptcy court to throw out its current contracts if new deals can't be reached.
Arbogast said he doesn't expect either action — new contracts or a judge's decision — until after Dec. 31, when all the workers who accepted the incentives will be gone. Arbogast, who will be retiring, is among those who intend to leave Dec. 31.
If Delphi uses temporary workers after that date, workers who accepted buyouts will have the opportunity to take those jobs, Arbogast said. Retirees, however, would not be able to take those jobs.
Delphi also agreed that workers who have taken the incentives cannot be forced to leave before Dec. 31 if they don't want to.