“The choice to put hundreds of Ohioans out of their jobs is not only the wrong one, but it’s shortsighted,” U.S Senator Sherrod Brown said in response to News Center 7′s request for comment on Nov. 3rd., regarding the closing of Norcold LLC. “I hope Norcold reconsiders its decision.”
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Brown sent a letter to the Chief Executive Officer at the Thetford Corporation, the parent company of Norcold, after Norcold representatives declined to meet with Brown to discuss the decision to close the facilities, according to a media release shared with News Center 7 from Brown’s spokesperson.
“It is short-sighted and fails to recognize the productivity of your workforce. It has also caught these communities by surprise after many years of service,” Brown said in the letter sent to Thetford. “After listening to the concerns of local elected officials in Gettysburg and Sidney and then attempting to engage with your company for weeks, it is beyond disappointing that your company refuses to meet with my office to discuss your decision to unilaterally shutter Norcold’s operations in these two cities.”
Brown’s office requested a response to the letter from Norcold by Dec. 7th., the release said.
“Too often, we have seen companies close facilities in Ohio, but it is extremely rare for a company to refuse to engage with my office to discuss ways to try to reduce the harm a plant closure inevitably has on workers and their communities,” Brown said in the letter. “I look forward to a prompt response that details how you plan to serve both your dedicated employees and the communities they call home.”
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The closure is scheduled for Dec. 31st., and will lay off 350 workers, as well as shift manufacturing overseas, the spokesperson said. Village officials want Norcold to remain open because the company accounts for 90% of the villages taxable income.
“I don’t want to say panic because we do have good leaders and we will get through it. We always do,” Village Council President Cheryl Byers told News Center 7′s Haley Kosik, “but this is just the biggest, biggest blow we’ve had since we lost our school.”
The village lost its school in 1972.
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Mayor Mike Shives stated when he heard of the closings, he was surprised and concerned for his daughter who works at Norcold.
“As mayor, I started to think about the financial part of it and that’s when I started making phone calls,” he said.
Shives and Byers share the opinion of Village Administrator Jay Roberts, who said, “Gettysburg is a great village, great people and they deserve great services. And we are already running a skeleton crew.”
Norcold will not be recalling any of the affected workforce, Heather Bates, senior manager in human resources with Norcold, said in an Oct. 27 memo to the Ohio Department of Jobs & Family Services announcing the closures.
Byers said village officials “feel like we were kind of just hung up to dry.”