DENNY SIMMONS / Courier & Press Mary Cates of Evansville, front, yells at passing vehicles that honked in support for the soon-to-be jobless Whirlpool workers on Thursday afternoon. Cates has worked at Whirlpool for 32 years.
Rita Austin of Dixon, Ky., has an idea what the mood at Whirlpool will be like today.
“Sad. Crying.”
Today is the last day on the job for 455 Whirlpool workers as the company eliminates its second production shift. The company will shut down its entire production line in June.
DENNY SIMMONS / Courier & Press Darrell Collins, president of Local 808, stands with the other demonstrators in the rain along U.S. 41 outside of Whirlpool’s Evansville plant on Thursday afternoon.
Whirlpool to add workers in Ohio
As Evansville’s Whirlpool workers are losing their jobs, the company is set to add workers at an Ohio facility.
Whirlpool Corp. announced Thursday that it intends to start manufacturing freezers in Ottawa, Ohio.
Whirlpool will move into a site formerly operated by W.C. Wood, a now-bankrupt company. Last year, Whirlpool was the successful bidder on Wood’s Ottawa freezer equipment, tooling and property.
“We have determined that the Ottawa facility has the potential to produce freezers under our leading portfolio of brands at globally competitive cost and quality levels,” Whirlpool Vice President of North America Region Manufacturing Operations Alan Holaday said in a news release.
Whirlpool said state officials in Ohio offered financial assistance that helped the company decide to open the Ottawa plant.
The company said it expects the Ottawa plant to become an official Whirlpool manufacturing site May 3. The location will have 190 full-time employees.
— Susan Orr
Austin, who has worked at Whirlpool for 18 years, has enough seniority to stay at the plant until then, but she said she hurts for those leaving today.
“We’re like family here.”
After she left work Thursday afternoon, Austin joined other Local 808 union members who stood along the shoulder of U.S. 41 for a rally.
The rally began at 2 p.m. with a handful of people and at its largest included about 30 people with ponchos and umbrellas against the rain.
Holding a sign that read “We the people need jobs,” Lori Houchin said she hoped the rally would raise awareness of the Whirlpool workers’ plight.
When Whirlpool closes its Evansville production line, 1,100 people will be out of work. The facility makes mostly refrigerators, and that production is moving to a Whirlpool plant in Mexico.
Whirlpool’s Evansville refrigeration design center will remain open, and those 300 or so employees — most of them engineers — will keep their jobs.
“It’s happening across America — factories are picking up and moving somewhere the labor’s cheaper,” Houchin said.
Houchin, who is among those losing their jobs today, said she is the sole breadwinner her family, which includes a husband and an 18-year-old son in high school.
She plans to return to school to study medical coding and billing, but she’s pessimistic about her chances of finding another job that pays as well as the $17.41 per hour she’s earned at Whirlpool.
“Factory work is the only thing that pays like this … and all the factories are moving jobs outside the U.S.”
Whirlpool spokeswoman Debby Castrale said the company had no comment about the rally other than that the company acknowledges the workers’ right to protest.
Work schedules will be adjusted a little today, Castrale said, giving workers time at the end of first shift and the beginning of second shift to attend parties for retiring co-workers.
Local 808 planned its rally for Thursday in order to avoid interfering with today’s retirement parties, said Local 808 President Darrell Collins.
The union has already staged a number of Whirlpool protests, including one last month that drew an estimated 2,000 people from multiple states.
Collins said he plans to organize more Whirlpool rallies.
“We’re going to agitate them every day we can until the end.”
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