Production ends at IAC Greencastle plant

Former IAC employees (from left) Michelle Thompson, Rhonda Dillon, Heather Woolery and Chris Reid stop as they walk out of plant on Greencastle’s East Side for the final time. What remains at IAC for the next few weeks is only a skeleton crew.

Courtesy photo

Having employed in excess of 500 people as recent as 2019, the International Automotive Components plant in Greencastle had less than 10 remaining as of Monday.

With 56 people laid off on Friday, March 18, the local IAC plant ceased production.

UAW Local 2382 President Jason Waller said many of these were 25-to-34-year employees of the plant.

“Friday was a tough day,” Waller said. “Many people were hugging and crying. We had several former employees return to see the building one last time, with much of it cleared out. A group of current and former employees gathered at the Putnam Inn after work to share memories.”

What remains is a very small crew that is cleaning and maintaining the Fillmore Road facility.

“We currently have a skeleton crew of less than 10 people left,” Waller said. “They will be doing cleanup projects on the building. The rigging company from Mexico that is removing the rest of our injection molding machines is running behind schedule.”

The plant has about eight electric injection molding machines that are set to be relocated to Mexico to produce parts for Tesla, Waller said.

While the remaining employees were told they would be at the plant through April 1, that timeline could be extended depending on delays by the company moving the equipment.

Once these machines are gone, the small crew will do any remaining cleaning before IAC closes the doors completely.

It’s been a steep decline for IAC in recent years. As of 2014, there were 854 hourly employees.

More recently, there were 491 hourly employees in June 2020 and then 464 in November of that year.

The number went down from 433 in April 2021 to 209 in October 2021. The number had dropped below 100 before Friday’s reduction in force.

The plant first opened in Greencastle in the late 1980s as Shenandoah Industries, one of the first facilities to come to the city following the closure of the IBM plant that many believed would devastate the community.

Shenandoah was a division of Automotive Industries out of Strasburg, Va., and the plant later took on the name of the parent company.

Automotive was then bought out by Lear Corp., and the plant remained Lear until the plastic interiors portion of the company was acquired by IAC.

In 1995, Shenandoah employed some 700 people, according to Norm Crampton’s book “The 100 Best Small Towns in America.”