P&G; Decides to Close Facility in Long Beach : 420 to Lose Jobs Within 15 Months, Manager Says
Procter & Gamble, the Cincinnati-based consumer products giant, has announced plans to close the Long Beach plant where the company has made Ivory soap and other household products for nearly 56 years.
The company said it will gradually close the facility--which now employs 420 workers--over the next 12 to 15 months.
“We regret having to make this kind of move,” said plant manager Bob Tharp. “I cannot stress enough that the phase-out does not reflect on the performance of our employees.”
“We care a great deal about our employees and have had a long and positive relationship with the community,” he added, noting that the plant has been in operation since 1931. Located on a peninsula in Long Beach Harbor, the facility has become something of a local institution, employing some families for generations, Tharp said.
The action followed by slightly more than a week the announcement of an $800-million companywide restructuring that P&G; Chairman John G. Smale said would result in a “stronger, more competitive company” and set the stage for future growth in earnings. The restructuring plan, he said, would consist of the consolidation and closing of some of the company’s 120 worldwide factories that make similar products.
Other Plants to Shut
The Long Beach plant--where the company makes Tide, Cheer and Bold detergents, Ivory soap, Cascade dishwasher detergent and Crisco and Puritan oils and shortening--is the only one of the company’s six California plants to be affected so far. Other P&G; factories are located in Oxnard, Modesto, Hayward, Sacramento and South San Francisco.
P&G; previously announced the closure of several other plants around the country, most notably in Omaha, Cincinnati and Green Bay, Wis.
Tharp said that in the future, products now made in Long Beach will be manufactured at P&G; factories in Sacramento, Cincinnati, Dallas and Jackson, Tenn.
The shutdown was announced to employees during a noon meeting on Friday, after which the plant was closed for the weekend to allow the workers to be with their families, Tharp said. “Right now, people are trying to sort things out.”
The company plans a number of steps to help them do that, he said, including some transfers to P&G; facilities elsewhere, help in securing other local employment, retraining for different career paths and severence payments that are already being negotiated with an employee association.
No layoffs will be made before the plant’s final closure, expected by Oct. 2, 1988, Tharp said.
Long Beach officials were reacting with sadness. “We’re sorry to see it go,” Tom Clark, a former mayor and now city councilman, said Tuesday. Clark said he would meet with the city manager to discuss whether there is anything the city can do to make P&G; change its mind or, failing that, to aid the workers.
