Goodyear announced Wednesday that it will close its Global Distribution Center in Air Park, eliminating about 160 Lincoln jobs by the end of the year.
According to a company press release, Goodyear will transfer warehouse activities to an undisclosed logistics firm.
That doesn't make much sense to Lincoln Mayor Coleen Seng.
"I'm not very pleased about what I've heard today," Seng said. "It seems to me, if we're talking in regard to distribution, Lincoln is ideally located."
While Lincoln is in the center of North America, Goodyear spokesman Skip Scherer said, its strategic importance for the company has declined of late.
"Over the years, the center of our business has kind of migrated eastward," Scherer said.
He said Goodyear is in discussions with the firm that will operate the new distribution center but hasn't signed any contracts. Scherer declined to say whether Goodyear would save money with the move, but he said the company expects to see other benefits.
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"This will make our warehouse and shipping operations more efficient and speed delivery to our customers," he said. "By relocating closer to the center of our customer base, we will be able to shorten delivery time, in some cases by as much as one full day."
Goodyear operates from two large hangars and two smaller buildings in Lincoln, totaling about 290,000 square feet. According to the press release, the company's new warehouse will be in a single building, with more space.
Seng said such a spot could have been secured here.
"We would have certainly found them another location if they wanted one building instead of two," the mayor said.
But Scherer said the need to maintain one space was secondary to the need for Goodyear to move closer to its customers.
The closing of the distribution center has been an option for the company since last year, when it reached a labor agreement with the United Steelworkers of America covering 14 plants.
At the time, the main Lincoln plant, which makes belts and hoses, was placed on a "protected list," meaning it will stay open at least until July 2006. However, the distribution center was excluded from the protected list.
Company officials last year said the center's future depended on the company's ability to negotiate a new lease with the Lincoln Airport Authority, which owns Air Park. The Airport Authority's executive director, John Wood, said Wednesday that the agency and Goodyear had had some "preliminary discussions" on a new lease last year. Wood said the plan called for the sides to meet this spring to start discussing rent and other terms.
Deb Brewster, an order picker at the warehouse, said she's concerned about hitting the job market when manufacturing companies are cutting positions and nothing similar seems to be available.
"I'm not young anymore," said the mother of four who's been at Goodyear for 10 years.
She said the near future most likely holds some sort of retraining for her, something she didn't expect to happen at this stage of her life.
"I felt fantastic when I got this job," she said. "I thought of it as a very good job."
Brewster is in a situation similar to dozens of other workers at the distribution center: With low seniority, they'll probably be looking for work within months.
General laborer Al Garza said that, as a single man, he's probably got better options than most distribution center workers facing unemployment. If he's let go soon, he said, he'll apply for a position at a Goodyear tire plant in Topeka, Kan. He's been with the company for only eight years, but because he's been laid off before, he said, he'll go on a preferential hiring list.
Gary Schaefer, vice president of Steelworkers Local 286, which represents Lincoln Goodyear workers, said staffers from the union's international headquarters in Pittsburgh and managers from Goodyear's Akron, Ohio, headquarters will meet with local union and managers to negotiate how the closing will proceed.
According to the terms of the labor agreement, Schaefer said, no severance packages are required but the workers let go may receive them. The negotiations will cover that issue, he said.
Schaefer said some 144 union members are assigned to the distribution center and those with seniority will be reassigned to the plant, displacing workers there with less seniority. He said management likely would request voluntary layoffs before letting people go. The number of jobs cut is also likely to be reduced by retirements and other attrition.
Schaefer said the union had been worried that the company might close the distribution center but felt that its advantages would keep it open.
"We thought Akron would look at the work ethic and central location," Schaefer said. "That was my hope."
The company employs about 1,135 Steelworkers in Lincoln, including those at the distribution center and another 155 remaining from a previously announced phase-out of automotive hose production, Schaefer said.
Reach Rodd Cayton at 473-7107 or rcayton@journalstar.com.