Maytag Ill. Plant to Be Phased Out

GALESBURG, Ill. - Mary Ann Armstrong expects plenty of tears this week when the last refrigerator rolls out of Galesburg's Maytag plant, along with nearly 900 workers whose paychecks supported this western Illinois city's economy for decades.

The sprawling plant provided 1,600 of the region's highest-paying jobs until Maytag Corp. began phasing it out two years ago.

Now, with few factory jobs left in the area, many of those workers will have to leave Galesburg to find similar jobs or commute more than an hour daily to Deere & Co. operations in the Quad Cities or to Caterpillar Inc. around Peoria.

Some, like Armstrong, plan to retire. Others hope the plant's closing will open a path to new careers _ the state sunk $1.5 million into a transitional center that opened in April, offering career counseling and free classes in nursing, computers, electronics and other fields.

"Everybody is kind of anxious to get moving on with their lives," Armstrong said.

The city is hoping they will, quickly. With Maytag and another factory closing this year, unemployment in Knox County could more than double from the current 6.5 percent, local officials say, and tight pocketbooks will have a trickle-down effect on local businesses, real estate and even social services.

Uncertainty has hovered over Galesburg, a city of 33,000 people, since the announcement by the nation's third-largest appliance maker two years ago.

Albert Eddington, 58, knows what lies ahead for those who have spent their lives in manufacturing once the assembly lines fall silent, something workers expect to happen on Wednesday. Maytag won't confirm that.

In the 1980s, Eddington lost his job when a Galesburg boat motor factory shut down and wound up mowing lawns and doing other odd jobs for a few months before finding work at Maytag. Now, instead of planning for a retirement of travel and camping, he's facing another job search.

"I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. I just want these companies to wake up," Eddington said. "I think we somehow have to say to them `Look, we need America back. You're taking it away from us.' How much profit do they need?"

Since Maytag announced the closing in late 2002, the Galesburg factory has become a symbol of America's loss of manufacturing jobs to foreign plants, even drawing a mention during U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama's keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

It's a tag that rankles Maytag officials, who say Galesburg's jobs are being shifted to a plant in Amana, Iowa, not just to the factory that opened last spring in Reynoso, Mexico.

"We are not the poster child for outsourcing," said Maytag spokeswoman Lynne Dragomier. She said more than 90 percent of Maytag's 19,000 employees worldwide will remain in the United States, and the company will maintain a presence in Illinois with a washer-dryer plant in downstate Herrin and its international headquarters in Chicago.

Illinois manufacturing jobs have dipped by more than 200,000 to about 710,000 since 2000, according to the Illinois Manufacturing Association.

By mid-2005, Galesburg's job losses will deepen when Australia-based BlueScope Steel closes a plant that makes pre-engineered metal buildings, cutting about 300 more jobs.

"It's the way the world is today. Maytag is in a competitive industry," said Jay Matson, president of Seminary Street Ltd., a downtown historic district with about 30 restaurants, shops and pubs. "I think it's a problem that's bigger than Galesburg."

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