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The eBearing News
October 4, 2005
Timken Closing Clinton
Automotive Bearing Plant
copyright © 2005 eBearing Inc.
The Timken Company (USA, NYSE: TKR) announced the closing of its Clinton, South Carolina bearing plant
as part of its Automotive Group restructuring, the latest victim of a slowing, increasingly troubled
and cost-driven U.S. auto industry.
Built in 1960 by The Torrington Company and opened in 1961, Timken inherited the Clinton plant
via its 2003 acquisition of Torrington from Ingersoll-Rand.
Clinton produces wheel bearings, steering bearings, thrust bearings for transmissions, and related
items, primarily for the automotive OEM market, but also for some industrial and outboard market segments.
Major customers include Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler.
The plant currently employs approximately 1,300 people and is Laurens County's largest
industrial employer. Workers there also earn higher-than-average wages
for the area -- $15 per hour, against $11 per hour on average elsewhere.
Many people interviewed by eBearing about the Clinton closing were not surprised, given the
conditions of the auto industry and Clinton's capacity utilization. Even so, closing
the plant marks a sharp reversal in fortune. Only last year, Timken was
announcing plans to invest $20 million at Clinton and hire 200 more workers. During the economic
downturn of 2001, Torrington had laid off nearly the same number.
Timken still operates several other plants in South Carolina -- Walhalla, Gaffney,
Honea Path, and Union. Walhalla, a former Torrington facility, and Gaffney are part of the Automotive Group.
Honea Path and Union are largely industrial.
Production will be gradually phased out of Clinton over the next two years, largely moved to
other North American facilities -- such as nearby Walhalla and Gaffney -- and some overseas, "consistent with
the company's manufacturing strategy of creating more focused factories."
Jacqui Dedo, Automotive Group President, said: "It is necessary that we continue to competitively
position our operations. The decision to close this plant resulted from a lengthy study of our automotive
business that identified the need to exit certain product lines and reduce fixed costs."
All of the South Carolina plans are non-union; since 1954, South Carolina is a "Right to Work" state which
means employees individually decide about union membership, rather than as a group.
South Carolina's unemployment rate has been hit hard by the U.S. auto industry's larger problems,
driving unemployment there to 6.3% recently. Laurens county's rate is slightly higher, at 6.6%.
Timken said many Clinton workers will be offered the opportunity to transfer to other plants
as production is phased out.
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- by Bruce A. Carr
from individual research,
tips and commercial sources.
Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
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eBearing.com ... for everything that moves™
Entire contents Copyright 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered
trademarks of eBearing Inc.
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eBearing.com ... for everything that moves™
Entire contents Copyright © 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered trademarks of eBearing Inc.
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