With their jobs about to end as Dometic shuts down its LaGrange, Ind., plant, members of UAW Local 871 said a lack of communications with the corporate bosses has them worried the multinational corporation will simply shut the plant’s doors without offering its workers a final severance package.
This story by Patrick Redmond originally appeared in The News Sun.
But company officials say that’s not the case.
Dometic announced in late January it would be closing the LaGrange plant on March 31 and moving about 195 jobs to a Dometic plant in Mexico. The LaGrange plant made awnings used largely by the RV industry.
Jane Johnson, the vice president of UAW Local 871 said since Dometic announced the plant closing, members of the union’s executive committee has had one meeting with management to talk about a severance package, and the people the Union members met with — the LaGrange plant’s supervisor and its HR director — said they didn’t have any authority to make any decisions about severance packages for employees.
“We had one meeting with them,” Johnson said. “and they told us they just didn’t have the authority to open the purse strings.”
To make sure Dometic’s management knows that employees are frustrated, Johnson said workers are planning to stage a silent protest today and will place signs demanding a severance package in the windows of their cars they drive to work and park in a company parking lot.
As the plant’s deadline moves closer, production has slowed, Johnson said, and many employees are working shorter days and clocking few hours. Despite that hardship, she said, workers remain loyal to Dometic, most staying on the job until the plant closes before they start looking for a new job.
Scott Nelson, the head of Dometic’s U.S. operations, said Thursday from his office in Elkhart that a severance plan is in the works for the LaGrange workers, but did not say what was in that package or when it would be unveiled to the workers.
“It’s a union plant, and that information is going to flow through the union,” Nelson said. “We’re talking to them, but of course, there’s going to be severance pay for the employees. To go into any particulars would be premature because that is something the union is negotiating on their behalf. But the answer to the simple question is, of course, there’s going to be paid severance, of course, we’re a company does care even though this is difficult news to share.”
