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— Gary Oden knew for weeks that the plant in this village where he has spent the last 19 years helping build Vise-Grip pliers, one of Nebraska's most famous products, would be shutting down.
But he still wasn't completely prepared for the meeting at 5:30 Wednesday morning.
He and the rest of the 330 employees at the plant were officially told the bad news, the kind that has stung workers in upper Midwestern states for years but is relatively uncommon in Nebraska: The plant is shutting down. Most of the work is moving to China.
"It's a kick in the head," Oden said from a DeWitt bar where employees gathered to discuss the announcement and "try to forget about it."
"Jobs sent overseas from a place like Detroit is different from jobs leaving from a place like DeWitt, Nebraska," he said, referring to DeWitt's small size.
The factory in downtown DeWitt for eight decades has largely defined, and populated, the town of about 570 people. Surrounded by farmland, DeWitt sits 10 miles west of U.S. 77 in southeast Nebraska, about 33 miles from the state capital of Lincoln.
A brick sign in front of City Hall is emblazoned with the Vise-Grip emblem, along with a picture of William Petersen. The Danish immigrant and blacksmith invented the locking pliers nearly 90 years ago when trying to find a way to clamp down pieces of metal while he worked on them.
He got a patent for the tool in 1924. Fourteen years later, a plant was built downtown. Employment steadily climbed from 37 people in 1938 to more than 700 in the 1990s.
At the end of October, it will be empty.
"This is going to really hurt this town," said DeWitt resident Sam Kirchof, who has worked at the plant for 16 years. Asked whom he blamed for the plant closure, Kirchof said simply, "The economy is going to China."
Others are sure to be rattled as well. Vise-Grip is an iconic name in Nebraska, one of the most famous products invented or developed in the state, along with Kool-Aid, raisin bran, and the Reuben sandwich.
A spokesman for Irwin Industrial Tools, which operates the DeWitt plant, said the decision was a tough one that didn't reflect on the quality of the work performed by DeWitt workers. Operations need to move to China, he said, to help lower the cost of Vise-Grips.
"We live in a global marketplace," said the spokesman, David Doolittle. "Consumers want a quality product at a lower price, and we've been forced to take this action" to better compete.
He said sales have declined the past few years as imitations of Vise-Grips came on the market at lower prices.
Irwin is part of Atlanta-based Newell Rubbermaid Inc., known for its food containers.
About 50 of the employees at the plant make specialty Unibit drill bits. That production will move to a plant in Gorham, Maine, where Irwin manufactures another type of drill bit.
Severance packages offered to employees at the DeWitt plant include pay that Doolittle said will make up the difference between unemployment insurance and employees' current wages.
Petersen died in 1962. The business was eventually renamed American Tool Cos., which sold out in 2002 to Newell Rubbermaid, a minority owner since 1985.
The plant went up for sale Wednesday, Doolittle said.
"We have no idea yet if anyone's interested."
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On the Net:
Newell Rubbermaid: http://www.newellrubbermaid.com/newellco/index.jhtml?_requestid200992
