Timken Canada is cutting jobs and slashing production to one shift, fuelling concerns the plant may close.
The St. Thomas manufacturer yesterday issued layoff notices to 140 workers, meaning only 73 will be working Monday.
"It is pretty nasty," said Kathy Cornish, chairperson Local 4906 United Steelworkers, representing workers at the plant.
"People here are numb. We were not anticipating this."
The plant employed more than 300 a few months ago, but since then 73 have been on layoff and another nine were lost to retirements in December.
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The greatest concern now is that cutting production to one shift, with its U.S. plants also under-capacity, may spell the death of the local manufacturer, said Cornish.
"The fear is very real. We have heard from the company about cross border issues . . . the plant manager has suggested we would not be viable on one shift," said Cornish.
However, Lorrie Paul Crum, manager of communications for Timken in Ohio, said the layoffs are due to the downturn in manufacturing, and the jobs will return when the economy does. "We are seeing the same thing all over the world, all our facilities are affected by this and we are adjusting production levels," said Crum.
"We are still looking for the bottom, for some sign of recovery and then we will happily put people back to work."
But she sounded an optimistic note on Timken's future in St. Thomas saying "the plant will continue" to operate. Timken manufactures close to its customers and St. Thomas helps supply Ontario, eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. markets with the tapered bearings it makes, she said.
"We are where our customers are. It does not make sense to ship over long distances and we need to be where the customers are."
Timken has 36 plants in the U.S. and one more in Canada, in British Columbia.
Norman De Bono is a Free Press business reporter.
NORMAN.DEBONO@SUNMEDIA.CA
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