By ED RUNYAN

By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Trumbull County Commissioner Paul Heltzel is sounding off on one aspect of the Delphi Corp. job reduction he finds especially appalling.
"What's going on now, it's not right," he said of news that the company has hired 2,000 temporary employees to fill jobs expected to be vacated by some of the 12,600 hourly workers accepting early retirements companywide.
At Wednesday's commissioners meeting, he said he thinks Delphi is allowed to employ temporary workers because of its bankruptcy.
No temporary workers are at Delphi's plants in the Mahoning Valley, however. They are working at plants represented by the United Auto Workers, which is implementing a buyout plan to reduce staff.
Delphi Packard Electric has 3,800 hourly workers in the region, represented by the International Union of Electrical Workers. That union recently agreed to a buyout plan, and workers have until Aug. 9 to decide whether to participate.
First, court approval is needed. Judge Robert Drain of federal bankruptcy court in New York is to hold a hearing on the plan today.
Ann Cornell Vickers, a Packard spokeswoman, said it isn't known if local plants would use temporary workers when the workers start leaving.
The Troy, Mich.-based auto supplier filed for bankruptcy protection last year. This week, Delphi told workers that it wants to cut nearly 2,800 hourly jobs from its Mahoning Valley operations -- from 3,800 workers to 1,033.
Compared with Toyota
Heltzel showed a copy of a Toyota magazine advertisement touting the large number of people it employs. The ad says Toyota is a good corporate citizen because it employs so many regular citizens.
Heltzel said the implication is clear: Americans may soon come to view Toyota, which has production facilities in the United States, as a better corporate citizen than American car manufacturers.
His comments followed a request by Commissioner Dan Polivka that Job and Family Services Director Tom Mahoney see to it that his department's One-Stop job training office provide assistance to the many workers who will be displaced by Delphi's moves.
Polivka said he hoped the agency could help make the displacements as painless as possible.
Mahoney said plans are already in place to do this, just as meetings have already been held with GM Lordstown assembly plant workers needing to prepare for the next phase of their work lives.
Aeropark Drive
In other matters, commissioners agreed to place back on their agenda and approve two controversial resolutions that will allow the use of a $100,000 state grant to repair Aeropark Drive. The road in Aeropark Industrial Park in Vienna Township services Delphi Packard Electric Systems and Timkin-Latrobe Steel Distribution Co.
Commissioners delayed action on the matter because Commissioner James Tsagaris said he didn't understand why a costly repair was needed on a road no more than six years old -- and wondered whether other projects in the county didn't deserve more attention.
Officials have said the grant could be used only for Aeropark Drive, so Tsagaris agreed Wednesday to approve the grant and allow the repair project to go forward. Heltzel and Polivka also voted yes.
Heltzel said the county engineer's office is expected to take over responsibility for the road at some point. The two resolutions approved Wednesday allow the county engineer to pay for the work and be reimbursed by the county planning commission, and approved a change order of $20,250.
XContributor: Don Shilling, Vindicator business editor.
runyan@vindy.com