Tribune Chronicle
May 1, 2001

Mexican workers speak out

By Raymond L. Smith

WARREN - The average worker at the Delphi Delco Electronics Plant employee in Reynosa, Mexico, must stand in front of his or her work station 12 hours per day, 48 hours per week for a weekly wage of $61.
When food, housing and other expenses are factored in, workers need at least $120 per week to feed and shelter their families, said three workers who are in town this week to attend Delphi Automotive Systems’ second annual stockholders meeting.

The stockholders will meet Wednesday at Kent State University Trumbull Campus’ main lecture hall in Champion.
Delphi workers Vicky Montoya, Lourdes Tenorio and Julia Quiñonez, who is a representative of the Border Committee of Women Workers, are hoping to talk to Delphi Automotive Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer J.T. Battenberg III to see if he can help to improve conditions at their plant. They also are scheduled to go to Kokomo, Ind., to talk to Harry Wagner, director of personnel at the Delphi-Delco Division.
Battenberg was scheduled to arrive in Trumbull County today.

“They say they cannot live under these situations,” said Ricardo Hernandez, director of the Mexico-U.S. Border program of the American Friends Service Committee, as he translated the concerns of the workers. The three workers do not speak English.

The women’s concerns include: low wages, the company not paying agreed upon overtime, requiring employees to purchase safety equipment with their own money, high costs charged to employees participating in the company’s housing program and their desire to be told the result of the lead-poisoning tests given to employees.

“We are living in new times,” Tenorio said, as translated by Hernandez. “It is time for us to be respected by the company. We work very hard and are doing our jobs. They are not treating us like human beings.”
The women said the workers at Delphi’s Delco Electronics Plant 3 have been patiently waiting for the company to respond to their concerns, but are now considering other avenues.

“Instead of listening, the company is just making bigger profits from our labor,” she said.
Delphi Delco spokesman Milton Beach said he will not debate the issues being discussed by the Mexican workers.

“I am not in the position to determine what may be done,” Beach said. “They have a meeting set up with our human resources officer.”

Beach said there are 6,475 hourly and 979 salaried workers at the Reynosa plant.

Delco produces a variety of electronic parts for automobiles, including air conditioning equipment, power and steering control modules, audio systems, electronic keys, instrumentation clusters and other electronic equipment.

Hernández said it is unfair to say the wages are lower in Mexico because of its cost of living.

“They live near the U.S.-Mexican border, so the cost of living is nearly as high as it is in the United States — which is about 80 percent of what it is on the U.S. side of the border,” he said.

Tenorio said a problem that the rank and file are having is that the leadership of the employee union has gotten too close to the company’s leadership and is not representing the best interest of the employees.

“The top leaders do not want us to work with the American unions,” she said. “We believe since the corporations are global, independent unions should be willing to work together and learn from one another. We should work in solidarity with one another. Our leadership have accused us of being anti-Mexican because we want to have a closer relationship with the Americans.”

The women are hoping to determine whether it has been their local leadership who has been ignoring their concerns or if it is the corporation.

“We are expecting a good response,” Tenorio said.

On Monday, the three Mexican workers were given tours of the Trumbull County Delphi Packard Electronics office by union representatives.

Tony Budak, chairperson of Mexican Exchange Committee, said the union is working to build a bridge between the American union and employees at Delphi’s Mexican operation.

“It is not the workers who are taking American jobs, but the company that is sending the jobs away,” he said. “These workers are experiencing many of the same problems we faced 30 to 40 years ago.”

Charlotte Ingalls, a vice president with the IUE-CWA, said the union is not changing its position about American jobs being sent out of the country, but it sympathizes with what workers are experiencing.

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