Employees Are Saddened but Hold No Anger Toward Manufacturer

Toni Glavas is 60 years old. For the past 26 years, she has worked as an assembler at Weiser Lock. Her son, daughter and son-in-law have all worked there for more than 10 years. Her father went to work there in 1928.

It is the kind of story that makes a company’s management proud--loyal employees who are proud of their work and proud of their company.

At Weiser, it is a story that often is repeated. The average employee has been there 14 years. And there are many family groups among the 1,100 workers at the Huntington Beach plant.

But by the end of next year, almost all will be gone--laid off as Weiser seeks to reorganize and relocate its manufacturing facility to improve its financial situation and regain a competitive edge. About 100 sales and administrative employees will stay in Huntington Beach or Long Beach, the company said. Most of the rest will lose their jobs.

But Weiser’s employees, from all outward signs, aren’t angry--at least not at their employer.

“We were shocked when they announced it” Aug. 5, said Dolores Garza-Pena, a 21-year Weiser employee.

“We’ve all heard rumors for more than a year or so, but everyone thought that this would never come--that something good would happen. At the meeting they stunned us. And it was all silence when it was over, with people wondering what they were going to do.

“But after the initial shock, the mood was pretty good. I am amazed at how well people are taking it. Some are sad, and some are mad. But mostly it’s sad. This has been a good company.”

Weiser is the only place that Ron Shephard has ever worked. His wife, Gail, also worked there, until she was laid off two months ago.

Now Shephard, 39, is preparing to lose his job, one he has held since returning from Vietnam 18 years ago.

He said he is not angry at Weiser; he doesn’t feel that the company has let him down.

Instead, he said: “I feel like I’m still at war. It used to be that ours, Kwikset’s and Weslock’s were what you saw in the hardware store lock displays. Now you go in and you see all these store brands that are made overseas and sell for $5. We can’t produce a lock for $5, and that’s what is hurting us. That’s what makes me mad as hell.”

Glavas said that the company is keeping employees informed of developments since the announcement that the plant would close at the end of next year and that layoffs would begin this fall.

Weiser will phase out the Huntington Beach facility over the next 18 months, then move to a smaller plant somewhere where wages and the costs of doing business are not as high.

Although company officials say they do not know where that will be, President James Connors said the company will probably choose a spot somewhere within 200 miles of the current plant and no farther north. That leaves San Bernardino, Riverside, Imperial and San Diego counties and southwestern Arizona as the most likely places.

The new plant will have fewer than half the employees now on Weiser’s $28-million annual payroll. Workers have been told that if they choose to follow Weiser, every effort will be made to find slots for them, although their wages may be lower and their jobs may not be the same.

Shephard said workers have been encouraged to apply for positions with other companies owned by Masco, the $2-billion-a-year hardware and auto parts conglomerate that is Weiser’s parent.

Ron Spencer, Weiser vice president and personnel director, said the company is putting out the word to other manufacturers in the area that there is a large and well-trained group of workers who are job-hunting.

In the first four working days after the closure plan was announced, he said, more than 100 manufacturing companies, most of them in Orange County, had called his office asking to have Weiser employees referred to them.

State employment officials are being brought to lead job-hunting seminars, and Weiser has promised to help train longtime workers in job-seeking skills.

“I’m not counting on them to find us a job,” Garza-Pena said, “but it sure would be nice if they did. You know, we all knew that orders were getting smaller and the company wasn’t doing as well, but we thought it would just would get smaller and smaller, with a few us of old-timers left at the end. Not this.”