Ohio Local Campaigns to Save Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Plant
December 6, 2006
 Members of IBEW Local 1985 at
a 1,000-worker manufacturing facility in Ohio producing Hoover
brand vacuum cleaners are waging a multi-faceted campaign to save
their jobs, as the parent Whirlpool Corporation seeks buyers for
its world-famous vacuum division.
Refusing to join the swath of destruction that has
ripped through the state’s manufacturing sector, the North Canton local – located
about an hour’s drive from Cleveland -- has hired financial
consultants to investigate worker ownership and called on newly-elected
political leaders for support.
On Friday,
December 1, Local 1985 President Jim Repace, joined Governor-elect
Ted Strickland, Attorney General-elect Marc Dann and other political
leaders at a meeting with Whirlpool executives followed by a tour
of the plant. Senator-elect Sherrod Brown was scheduled to attend,
but had to cancel due to an emergency; he sent a representative
who read a very strong statement of support.
Speaking
to the fears of IBEW members that a new buyer could export their
jobs to Asia or to Hoover’s existing plants in Mexico, Strickland said, “We’ll
work with the new ownership to do all we can to see that jobs remain here.” Meeting
with union members, Strickland praised labor organizations for displaying the
U.S. flag in their halls and opening their meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance. “Such
a custom should occur in the board rooms around the country,” he said,
to loud applause.
In the Spring of 2005, as rumors of a sale spread,
the local immediately sought help from the Ohio Employee Ownership
Center and the City of North Canton. The
local retained financial advisors to help make the union’s case for keeping
the plant open to executives of Maytag, Hoover’s former owner
Local 1985
welcomed the news last summer that Whirlpool was purchasing the
vacuum cleaner plant from Maytag which purchased the plant in 1989
from Chicago Pacific. While the local had a decent relationship
with Maytag for many years, things had deteriorated as the company
outsourced production to El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico and
then announced plans to sell off the facility.
“This community
witnessed the near destruction of one of the world’s
most recognized brand names, going back to 1908, as the gentlemen
and ladies at Maytag’s corporate headquarters in Newton,
Iowa gradually picked us apart,” says Jim Repace, president
of Local 1985. “It was
a crime and needs to be stopped.”
Since Whirlpool’s May announcement that it planned to follow
Maytag’s lead in selling Hoover, the local’s
advisors have informed all prospective buyers of the union’s
intention to work as partners with future owners to rebuild the
company.
Currently, 800 IBEW members are working at Hoover;
about 170 are on layoff.
“Our goal is not to become a statistic,” says Jim Repace. “Our
goal is to become a model. We want to show that American manufacturing
is alive and well. We want to keep jobs here.”
To
read the IBEW’s national press release on this issue,
click here.
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