Today, Delphi is a mere shadow of what it once was in the Dayton area.
In 1999, the year General Motors Corp. spun Delphi, its parts-making arm, off to independence, the company had 15,000 Dayton employees. Today, the company has one plant which continues to operate locally, a thermal products facility with about 200 employees off Northwoods Boulevard in Vandalia.
“It’s disheartening,” said Joe Buckley, former president of United Auto Workers Local 696, which at one time represented Delphi workers at the company’s now-closed Needmore Road plant. “It’s just unthinkable, anybody who thought that this would happen.”
In April 2008, Delphi nearly exited bankruptcy, but potential investors walked away from a $6.1 billion bankruptcy exit financing deal at what appeared to be the last moment.
Leaders of United Steelworkers Local 87, which represents Vandalia Delphi workers, could not be reached for comment Thursday. A voice mail message at the union hall said union officials were in Troy, Mich. for talks with Delphi and GM.
In recent years, Delphi has closed plants in Dayton and Moraine, and leased part of a plant in Kettering to parts producer Tenneco.
In May, Delphi said it would leave the occupant protection systems business, which employed about 140 people in the Vandalia complex. That business concerned the design and production of vehicle air bags, seat belts and steering wheels systems.
In April 2008, Inteva launched its own presence at the Northwoods facility. Inteva, a subsidiary of the Renco Group, bought Delphi’s Interiors and Closures product line and leases about 80,000 square feet of space from Delphi in the company’s engineering center in Vandalia.
“I’m probably like everybody else,” Buckley said. “We’ve already been relocated, retired and everything else. It’s something that’s been in the works for so long.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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