DELPHI CORP. Negotiators continue to work on labor pact

Packard workers are to report as scheduled unless they hear from the union.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
WARREN -- Talks were continuing Friday as negotiators tried to hammer out a new labor contract for Delphi Corp. workers.
Kevin Hartill, vice president of Local 717 of the International Union of Electrical Workers in Warren, said negotiators in Detroit will continue talking as long as they are making progress, perhaps even past the current contract's expiration at 11:59 tonight.
Hartill, who held a news conference Friday at the union hall, indicated that negotiators were making progress toward a new agreement.
Supplies ready
Strike signs and picket line supplies, such as firewood and burning barrels, have been prepared but remained in storage Friday afternoon, he said. If talks were going poorly, local unions probably would have been told to ready the supplies for a strike, he said.
Workers are to report at regularly scheduled shifts this weekend unless they hear otherwise from the union, he said.
Local 717 represents about 4,000 hourly workers at Delphi Packard Electric Systems plants in the area. The talks in Detroit also cover thousands of other workers at other divisions of Troy, Mich.-based Delphi.
Delphi is the world's largest auto supplier, with Packard making wiring harnesses and related products.
Negotiators are bargaining a national labor contract, which covers wage and benefits, and local agreements, which covers local work rules.
While the national contract expires today, the local contract doesn't have an expiration date but still is renegotiated. Hartill said Local 717 members gave union leaders the authority to call a strike on either the local or national agreement.
A key issue for the local union is protecting jobs, Hartill said.
Packard has cut its work force in half in the last eight years as workers retire.
Trying to bring some back
Negotiators also want to bring back 214 recently hired workers who were laid off last month, he said. Those workers were hired since the last contract negotiations in 1999, so they did not have job protection provided to long-standing union members.
Last month, Packard said business was slow so it had 300 senior employees coming to work even though they had no production duties. The contract provides that they must be paid.
Hartill said he expects a new national contract will provide similar wage and benefit provisions as a contract recently signed by the United Auto Workers.
The UAW contract with the Big Three automakers provided a signing bonus of $3,000 the first year, a lump-sum payment in the second year that is tied to company performance and raises of 2 percent and 3 percent in the final two years.
Automakers agreed to continue paying for health insurance premiums but received the right to close some plants.
shilling@vindy.com