Recruiting in China

By Bob Fernandez
Inquirer Staff Writer
Some auto-parts companies have it worse than Cardone Industries Inc.

Delphi Corp., the giant parts maker spun off from General Motors Corp., is in bankruptcy protection, and on Wednesday announced a massive employee buyout plan. Another big one, Dana Corp., filed for bankruptcy protection March 3.

Cardone's biggest competitor, American Remanufacturers Inc. of Anaheim, Calif., was liquidated last November, putting its 1,650 employees out of work.

Cardone picked up some of its former competitor's business, at least for now. George Zauflik, a Cardone Industries vice president, says his company has hired 225 workers in Philadelphia since November as former orders from American Remanufacturers, the nation's No. 2 auto rebuilder, flowed to Cardone plants.

But automotive retail chains that used to buy rebuilt parts from the California company also started buying new parts from Chinese manufacturers, Zauflik says.

Cardone still has the advantage of quick delivery to U.S. retailers. But Zauflik said he fears that advantage could disappear if Chinese companies build and stock warehouses in the United States.

In bankruptcy court documents, American Remanufacturers cited debt, pricing pressures, raw material costs, and foreign competition for its woes. The company had plants in New Hampshire, Ohio, Arizona and California.

Herbert Ottman, 55, had a job in one of them. The machine operator showed up for his shift before dawn on Nov. 17 in Bedford, N.H., to find that security guards had locked the plant gates. Five-hundred-sixty workers in Bedford and in a sister plant in Merrimack, N.H., had no jobs. The two plants were operated as Car Component Technologies, a division of American Remanufacturers.

"I'm going to have to start a new career, for whatever time I have left," Ottman said. He's applied for 70 to 80 manufacturing positions in a widening circle around his home. "It hasn't been an easy road the last couple of months."