KETTERING, OHIO 340 workers sit with no work to do as Delphi and union discuss dispute

Delphi and the union continue talks about idle workers.
KETTERING, Ohio (AP) -- About 340 workers, stuck in a dispute between their union and their auto parts company, have spent the past four months in what many compare to a high school study hall with little to do for eight hours a day.
The dispute began when the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communication Workers of America won an arbitration case in August that forced Troy, Mich.-based Delphi Corp. to comply with a 1996 labor agreement. The agreement guarantees 1,500 jobs at its air-conditioning compressor plant in the Dayton suburb of Moraine through 2011.
Delphi complied and called back 500 workers it laid off last year, paying them back wages and benefits. But there weren't enough jobs at the plant, so the company placed most of the workers in the company's old chassis division headquarters in this Dayton suburb.
What they do
The employees, some making as much as $22 an hour, are not allowed to play games or read magazines and newspapers. But books and laptop computers are permitted, and workers can talk to each other.
Over the holidays, some did charitable work, making blankets for a children's hospital and collecting money for the homeless.
The company and the union are involved in intense talks to reach a new local contract that resolves the dispute along with a lawsuit Delphi has filed against the union, the Dayton Daily News reported.
The union and Delphi will not discuss about specifics of the talks.
Jim Clark, chairman of IUE-CWA's Automotive Conference Board, said he is optimistic about the outcome.
Scott Mitchell, general director of manufacturing operations for Delphi's Automotive Holdings Group, a separate division for the company's money-losing operations that includes the plant, said Delphi is working through several issues with the union, government officials, customers and suppliers.
Annual losses
The Moraine plant "is one of Delphi's newest, most technologically advanced manufacturing operations in the world," Mitchell said. But the plant is looking at annual losses of at least $80 million.
"Our customers, our employees, our plant community and our shareholders are depending on us to succeed," he said.
Delphi invested about $100 million in converting an old warehouse into a compressor production plant. The 300,000-square-foot plant is designed to be small, flexible and lean so that the production process was stripped of unnecessary steps.
But the plant has struggled to be profitable. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Dayton, the company said it is "imperative" that it reduce the work force to improve its competitiveness.
Workers, however, say they feel betrayed. They say they agreed to give up $251 million in wages and benefits in 1996 in exchange for more job security.
Delphi has been outsourcing work to local suppliers and shifting jobs to lower cost plants overseas.
Kim Korth, president and founder of Grand Rapids, Mich.-based automotive consulting company IRN Inc., said Delphi's compressor business has lagged behind its other product lines. Outsourcing becomes a necessity because of pressure to reduce prices that companies charge automakers, Korth said.