Huron Expositor, 2009-01-21, Page 18News
escast closing foundry, losing 140 local jobs
Garit Reid
OREEMEM
Wescast Industries Inc., a manu-
facturer of exhaust systems,
announced last week that it would
be restructuring its North American
,operations significantly, which will
see the loss of about 140 jobs.
They will be closing the Wingham
North Huron foundry and transfer-
ring the plant's productions to its
second Wingham foundry, which is
located on Water Street.�
The move coincides primarily due
to the state of the economy, especial-
ly to the automotive industry.
"The very difficult decision to close
the Wingham North Huron foundry
.e r r.i .y w.•-.. .,
came after a careful evaluation of
our cost structure, expected future
business volumes and available
capacity in other facilities," said
Wescast Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer Ed Frackowiak in
a press release.
Wescast will look to close the. plant
by the end of the first quarter of this
year and reports it will look to save
an estimated annual fixed savings
cost of $10 million dollars.
The restructuring charges associ-
ated with the reduced production
volumes are expected to be in the,
range of $60-65 million dollars.
A point Frackowiak wanted to
stress is the 140 jobs being cut will
be mostly workers who are currently
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The two Wingham foundries oper-
ate under the same collective bar-
gaining agreement, so the stream-
lining will impact workers at both
plants.
Wescast is a company that needs
to run at capacity and adhere to
customer demand, said Frackowiak.
Current conditions in the auto
industry make it impossible to do
that; thus the Wingham plant is
slated for closing.
"We've been hit hard; but Wescast
has done a good job buffering
through the storm. We are moth-
balling the plant and have plans to
reopen it in the future,". said
Frackowiak.
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The plant closing will impact
Wingham and area, since a lot of the
140 jobs are people from the area. It
may take a toll on various things
such as insurance rates, employ-
ment levels and consumer buying.
The local reaction was palpable.
"I'm not happy, but I'm also not
surprised, since they are at the
mercy of the auto industry," said
Wayne McDonagh of McDonagh
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Lucknow. "With people losing their
jobs, like at places like Wescast, it
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