By Denise G. Callahan
Staff Writer
A company employing more than 300 in Warren County has announced it will close local operations.
Sumco Phoenix Corp. in Hamilton Twp. began telling its nearly 360 employees Tuesday, June 23, it will be shutting down operations at the plant over the coming year.
The silicon wafer manufacturing plant at 537 Grandin Road will close June 30, 2010, however, most of the shutdown will be accomplished by March 2010. Warren County Administrator Dave Gully said layoffs likely would begin in September.
Company representatives said Sumco would shift operations to other plants in the United States and overseas. Its parent company is based in Tokyo, Japan, according to an announcement released Tuesday night.
“This was a very hard, yet necessary conclusion to reach for the continued survival of our business,” Sumco CEO Shigetoshi Shibuya stated in a news release. “The employees at Maineville have tried valiantly for some time to make this work, and we are extremely grateful to them; however, our operations there have been severely impacted by both the unexpected nosedive of the global economy and changes within the industry itself over the past year.”
Sumco has filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice. The company’s workers will be eligible for severance pay and some benefits continuation and outplacement assistance, the company said. Sumco has applied for benefits available under the Trade Adjustment Act for possible extended unemployment benefits, educational assistance and extended medical coverage.
Little Miami schools stand to lose out on $110,000 in annual tax revenue, not to mention the donations the company typically made for student scholarships. When Sumco tried to move to Oregon six years ago, the company was given state and local incentives to stay, including a property tax abatement that has cost the school district more than $1 million in revenue, according to district spokesman Lisa Knodel.
“The closing of Sumco will have a significant impact on Little Miami schools,” said Superintendent Dan Bennett. “It will mean a loss of educational opportunities through our valued business partnership, a loss of tax revenue, and a loss of scholarship money for our graduates.”
Gully expressed similar thoughts.
“We are saddened by Sumco’s decision to close its operations in Warren County,” Gully said. “Sumco and its employees are valuable and generous corporate citizens. Their absence will be felt throughout the community. We will partner with our One Stop Employment Center to help the dislocated Sumco employees find a new jobs.”
Karen Whittamore, director of Workforce One of Warren County, said the company is going out with class, already working to help its employees find new jobs.
“They are trying to be very, very aware of the needs of the people who are going to be impacted,” she said. “You really do appreciate it when an employer is going to give options to their employees.”
When Blackhawk Automotive in Mason shut down last year it left its 700 employees in the lurch, keeping them in dark about what was going on with the bankruptcy and offering little if any assistance, workers said.
