Silgan mum on reasons for closing Port Clinton plastics plant
Feb 05, 2010 (The Blade - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Copyright (C) 2010, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio
PORT CLINTON, Ohio -- A Connecticut-based metals and plastic packaging company with more than 20 manufacturing plants in North America won't say why it chose to close a plastics plant it has owned in Port Clinton for 20 years.
But a top executive of Silgan Holdings Inc. told The Blade yesterday that it was not the fault of its 150 local workers, who will be offered assistance when the plant closes sometime in late summer.
"It was a facility that had an outstanding work force," said Robert Lewis, chief financial officer for Silgan. "It was not suited well for the customers that it was serving."
Mr. Lewis said "most of the equipment" in the 390,000 square-foot facility would be moved to other facilities, including a Silgan plant in Ottawa, Ohio. While he refused to say exactly why Silgan opted to close its Port Clinton plant instead of one of its other 20 manufacturing facilities, Mr. Lewis said the reasons had less to do with the plant itself than with the industry.
Silgan has a past practice of offering employees jobs at its other facilities if openings are there, he said.
Silgan's plastic container business dropped 17 percent in 2009 to $541.5 million in sales. The business segment reported a profit of $31.3 million last year, a drop of $12.5 million from 2008.
Dave Fahrbach is a co-owner of the Lake Erie Business Park where the plastics plant has operated since the 1960s. Silgan leases about 55 percent of the massive, bunkerlike building that was built during the early days of World War II as the former Erie Ordnance Depot. "We were blindsided," he said. "The employees were blindsided. Everybody was blindsided."
The company employed about one of every four people who work in the Industrial Park, he said.
Mr. Fahrbach's business partner, James McKinney, said Silgan gave no indication that there were any issues with the Port Clinton facility, and that he had met with local Silgan representatives as late as Friday to work on future projects.
"In every meeting we had, they were very happy," Mr. McKinney said. "We kept our finger on the pulse, as it were, and made sure everything was OK all the time. When we heard this on Tuesday, it frankly took our breath away."
Messages were left with several workers at the plant, who did not return calls seeking comment. However, Mr. McKinney said the plant's 150 workers -- and managers -- were "just floored" when they were called into a meeting Tuesday morning.
Ottawa County's jobless rate of 17.3 percent in December was the highest of any county in northwest Ohio and the second-highest in the state. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services estimates that 3,800 workers from the county's total work force of 22,000 workers are without jobs.
Jamie N. Beier Grant, director of the Ottawa County Improvement Corp., said, "Everything we've been told is that this is purely economic, and not an indication of the quality of our work force.
"Right now, we're trying to communicate with the corporation that if there's anything we can do to keep the facility in operation, we're willing to discuss it."
- Larry P. Vellequette
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