MAUMEE, OHIO - Aeroquip Corp. of Maumee has signed an agreement to sell its injection molding plant in Bassett, Va., to GS Industries Holdings of Cleveland. The deal is to be finalized May 28; the price was undisclosed.
The 148,000-square-foot Bassett plant employs 85 and makes products for the furniture, appliance, electric, telecommunications, building and construction and industrial markets. GS Industries President Frank Glinski said he plans to introduce new technologies there that will increase employment. Glinski, a former Aeroquip employee, was a plant manager and director of product development and engineering services.
GS Industries Holdings owns GS Industries Inc., a chemical mixing firm and maker of flexible plastic coatings, swimming pool paint and polyester adhesives. Aeroquip is a unit of Tri-nova Corp., which manufactures engineered products for the aerospace and auto industries. Trinova also is in Maumee.
Union drops complaint against DuPont
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - An independent union at DuPont Co.'s Niagara Falls chemical feedstocks plant dropped its 2-month-old National Labor Relations Board complaint May 13 against the company's ``employee team'' program.
Another ``team'' complaint remains active at the Tonawanda, N.Y., DuPont polyvinyl film plant, also filed in March.
Stephen Fleury, wage and hour chairman of the Niagara Plant Employees Union, said the NLRB complaint was dropped when plant management agreed to remove those employees whom the union represents from a team's membership.
DuPont said it formed teams to determine which tasks are more inspiring to workers. The union said the teams illegally interfered with its role to negotiate employment conditions.
No NLRB hearing has been set for Tonawanda employees' complaints that, among other disciplinary items, an employee was denied due process when forced to serve on a company team promoting safety.
A more complete version of this story appears in Plastics News on the Web, at http://www.plasticsnews.com.
Spartech finalizes $19 million purchase
CLAYTON, MO.-Spartech Corp. completed its previously reported purchase of Portage Industries Corp. on May 9.
The Clayton company paid about $19 million for Portage Industries' two plastic sheet extrusion plants and a small, light-gauge thermoforming facility, all located in Portage, Wis.
Spartech plans to invest $750,000 to $1 million in the Portage sheet operations by year's end 1997, said Bradley Buechler, Spartech president and chief executive.
But, he added, it is too soon to specify how those funds will be spent. Portage adds about seven extrusion lines and 148 employees to Spartech Plastics' sheet, film and roll stock manufacturing.
The 20-employee thermoforming unit, acquired as part of the purchase package, will continue to operate as is, while Spartech analyzes what to do with it, Buechler said. That unit has sales of about $2.63 million.
Gertrude Crain retires as Crain chairman
CHICAGO - Gertrude Crain, 85, who has been chairman of the board of Crain Communications Inc. since 1974, has retired after 40 years with the company and will hold the title chairman emeritus.
Crain Communications publishes Plastics News, and more than two dozen other trade and business newspapers and magazines.
Rance Crain, company president, and Keith Crain, vice-chairman, will retain their present positions. Gertrude Crain first became involved in the business as assistant treasurer at the urging of her husband, G.D. Crain Jr., who founded the company in 1916.
She also served as the Crain board's secretary and became chairman after the death of her husband in 1973.
Gertrude Crain has been active in numerous professional organizations, including the Committee of 200, an international organization of leading businesswomen. Among her honors is the coveted Henry Johnson Fisher Award from the Magazine Publishers of America, which she received in 1992.
