Plant Manager Tom Kloss tells Bayshore Broadcasting news they were originally expecting the closure to happen in March, but it has now been bumped up to January.
Kloss says starting January 31st and over the following 4 weeks, 88 hourly and 25 salaried workers will be laid off.
He says the rest of the employees at the plant will be kept on for an undetermined amount of time while they ship product out and implement an orderly shut down.
Kloss blames the fast tracked closing date to continued deterioration in the automotive and housing industries.
He says based on the current economy, the closure could have happened even earlier, as has been the case at a PPG plant in Illinois.
Kloss suspects the news isn’t a total shock to the workers since they’ve seen what’s going on in the market and watched as shipping volumes decreased.
However, he says there’s still a lot of disappointment at the plant as some hoped something would happen to turn it all around.
Kloss says he has nothing but praise for the workers at the plant, who have been very professional since the original closing announcement in September.
The plant is offering career counselling and placement services to help the workers make transitions.
