Amcor Rigid Plastics is closing a Chicago-area plant, a move that will cost more than 100 people their jobs.
The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company filed paperwork with the state of Illinois indicating layoffs at its Batavia, Ill., bottle making plant will begin Sept. 19. The ending layoff date is listed as March 5, 2018.
The permanent plant closing will impact 110 workers, the company told the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, requires companies with more than 100 workers to give a 60-day notice of layoffs.
"We've announced that we're closing that plant and we're consolidating the business into other Amcor footprint plants throughout North America," Amcor Rigid Plastics spokesman Michael Hodges said.
Amcor has a handful of other plants in the Chicago market, and the closure of the Batavia site will take place over several months.
"We're starting to move equipment. It's a slow process when we do these things because we're working with customers and qualifying bottles and locations," Hodges said. "We are starting to make those consolidation plans, with some of the equipment, starting to move within the next month."
"We feel like we will cease production in that [facility] by March, April timeframe next year," he said.
Amcor acquired the Batavia plant as part of a larger deal in 2010 for Ball Corp.'s Plastic Packaging Americas operation. The deal, reported to be $280 million at the time, included five plants in the United States making PET bottles and preforms as well as polypropylene bottles.
"We are constantly evaluating our footprint to make sure it makes sense for customer and for business needs," Hodges said.
"We've made acquisitions and with that comes plants and then you have to reshuffle the business a bit to make it make sense. And that's what this is all about," he said.
The Batavia plant primarily makes bottles for the food industry.
