Philips to Close Southland Plant

Indiana-based Philips Products will close its Rancho Cucamonga door-and-window manufacturing plant, which employs about 230 people and has been hit by a strike for nearly two months.

The striking workers were seeking full payment by the company for a new medical plan instead of 75%, a salary increase of 35 cents an hour and additional sick days. Most of them make about $9 an hour.

Asked whether the impending closure was in response to the strike, Joe McPhilamy, the company’s director of human resources, would say only that “it was an entrepreneurial business decision.”

The plant, which makes doors and windows for West Coast customers in the recreational-vehicle and manufactured-home industries, will shut down Sept. 9.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 848, represents the workers. Union business agent Eric Tate said the union will call for a boycott of Philips Products by construction unions across the country.