Company closing Lavington glass plant fight heats up

By Roger Knox - Vernon Morning Star Published: August 22, 2008

Lavington glass plant employees were left with an empty feeling on Friday. Their employer, Owens-Illinois Incorporated (O-I), based out of Perrysburg, Ohio, near Toledo, announced to workers Friday morning at 9 that they were closing the plant permanently. The move is effective Oct. 31. “One furnace will be going down on Sept. 30, the other on Oct. 31, and there will be a complete shutdown,” said one plant worker, employed at the glass plant for more than 28 years, who did not want to be named. Company president Scott Murchison said, in a press release, that the closing of the Lavington facility was driven by the company’s ongoing global asset utilization process. “The process identified the opportunity to shift our production to other O-I North American facilities, resulting in lower energy consumption and production costs while still meeting current and anticipated market needs,” said Murchison. Opened in September, 1969, as Consumers Glass, the plant employs 300 people. O-I has said it will provide assistance to help employees seeking new jobs.

“I’ve got two kids, and still have 15-to-20-years to retirement yet, so it affects me quite a bit,” said the worker. “Some people were retiring this year, anyway. For me, I’ll be talking to a few of my buddies and see what else I can do.” News of the longtime employer’s impending closure resulted in surprise and disappointment. “It’s been a rumour for awhile, but I’m certainly not real happy about it, but there’s not much we can do about it,” said Gary Corner, the Mayor of Coldstream, where the facility has operated for nearly 40 years. “I feel very bad for all of the workers working there.” Vernon Mayor Wayne Lippert said the glass plant’s closure will have a ripple effect throughout the North Okanagan. “Besides the people being directly affected, it affects all the other businesses indirectly that fill a need, whether it be in supplies or whatever to that industry,” said Lippert. “It also has an affect on what people purchase.”

Okanagan-Vernon MLA Tom Christensen found out about the news when asked for a comment by The Morning Star. “It certainly is a sad day when you lose a large employer like that,” said Christensen. “In some ways, it underlines the difficulty of being competitive in a global market in a mass-produced commodity like glass.” Lauren Dubilzig from O-I’s corporate communications division, said O-I owns the Lavington plant and plans to sell it. She could not say if there were any interested buyers at this time. O-I had previously scheduled a five-day shutdown at all North American facilities over the Labour Day weekend, and recently closed a glass container plant in Toronto, putting 430 people out of work.