MANUFACTURING
Sperian Protection to shutter its Cheektowaga plant, cut jobs
A French maker of gloves and other body protection gear is shutting down its Cheektowaga plant and cutting 55 jobs as it moves production work to a new lower-cost plant in China.
Sperian Protection Group of Paris late Wednesday announced the closure of its manufacturing facility at 85 Innsbruck Drive, formerly part of the Perfect Fit Glove Company. The Sperion Protective Gloves USA LLC plant has operated here for more than 35 years.
All employees will lose their jobs, starting Sept. 25, although some administrative and management staff will remain here “to ensure uninterrupted service to customers, and to build upon the many other strategic initiatives underway to reinforce our business and operations,” the company said in a press release.
Workers will receive a severance package, and the company noted they will be eligible to continue their health insurance coverage through COBRA. The company said it has also applied for Trade Adjustment Assistance from the U. S. Department of Labor, which can provide funds for education and training of workers who lose jobs because of increased imports.
The decision came as Sperian, which calls itself the world leader in personal protective equipment, announced it would restructure its glove manufacturing operations.
The company said its Sperion Protective Gloves division, formerly Perfect Fit, considered “several strategic alternatives” in the past two years to improve performance and provide better service to customers. As part of that effort, the company bought a “state-of-the-art” glove-making facility in Nantong, China, and established a global research and development center in France that will be home for the division’s testing and new innovations.
“This will help position Sperian as a global glove manufacturer and a reference leader in the industry,” the company said in the release.
However, the two investments, coupled with the global recession, “has necessitated the decision to close” the Cheektowaga plant and consolidate production in Nantong, Sperian said.
Sperian, formerly Bacou- Dalloz, makes hearing, eye, respiratory and fall protection, gloves, clothing and footwear for the manufacturing and services industries. It’s No. 1 for eye and fall protection, and No. 2 for hearing protection, and employs 6,100 worldwide, with 31 production sites on five continents. Nearly half of its workforce are in the Americas.
Its two predecessors, Christian Dalloz and Bacou SA, were founded in 1957 and 1974, respectively, and merged in September 2001. The company changed names in August 2007.
Bacou USA bought Perfect Fit and a related North Carolina company in 1999 for $53.8 million, and the company said it planned to keep the maker of industrial gloves in Western New York. The Cheektowaga plant employed 160 people then and was the nation’s No. 3 maker of non-disposable industrial gloves.
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