WILMINGTON — Bo Vandiver is one of thousands of workers worrying about his future now that DHL's plan to hire United Parcel Service for U.S. cargo flying could eliminate the need for ABX Air to operate DHL's Wilmington air freight hub.

Vandiver, 39, drives 65 minutes each way daily between his Ripley home and his job as a package sorter for ABX Air at DHL's Wilmington hub. From there, dozens of planes leave each night with packages bound for destinations across the United States.

Although it is a part-time job, Vandiver is able to obtain health care benefits for himself and his wife by paying $75 per two-week pay period. He works four and one-half hours nightly when the delivery hub is most active, five days a week. He wonders where he, and future generations of his family, will get comparable jobs if ABX is replaced as a key air cargo sorter and transporter for DHL.

"I've got grandkids who say they're going to work out at DHL," Vandiver said. "It's going to make a big impact on a lot of communities around here."

"These are going to be ghost towns if this goes down," said Mark Dimondstein of the American Postal Workers Union, which has been trying to win the right to represent ABX Air employees in collective bargaining.

The German-owned DHL needs to serve the United States as part of its global express delivery network, but is trying to reduce annual U.S. losses that reached $900 million in 2007.

DHL announced on May 28 that it expects to conclude a contract within three months to have UPS, a competitor, handle all of its U.S. package sorting and flying. UPS could start taking over the work this summer.

That potentially threatens 7,000 Wilmington jobs at ABX, which flies cargo for DHL and operates the hub, and ASTAR Air Cargo, which also flies cargo from there for DHL, Clinton County officials said. In addition, DHL employs 1,200 people there and 2,000 other regional jobs depend on the hub, county officials said.

On average, one out of every three homes in the Wilmington area houses an employee of ABX Air, the largest of the hub's three employers, Wilmington Mayor David Raizk said.

"This is catastrophic," Raizk said. "We can't emphasize enough the regional nature of the impact."

Staff writer Tim Tresslar contributed to this story.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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