Fallout Continues From Tonawanda Plant Closure

It’s been a few days since Sumitomo Rubber announced it was closing its Tonawanda tire plant, leaving 1,550 people without jobs. The decision continues to cause confusion and concern in the community and throughout Western New York. 

Not only did the company lock out workers Thursday morning, it was discovered Friday the company also shut off the raw water access it had been providing to the neighboring 3M Tonawanda plant, a low-cost utility that 3M says it needs to operate. The company says the lack of service is temporary for the Sheridan Drive plant, but Tonawanda Town Supervisor Joseph Emminger is worried about the bigger picture, as the 3M plant is the largest producer in the world for O-Cel-O and Scotch-Brite sponges. 

The factory still has potable water, which is more expensive than the raw water it uses through a pipeline that runs through the Sumitomo plant, Emminger explained. But the company says the suspension of service is temporary and had been scheduled in advance to allow for maintenance on the intake tunnel. The Buffalo News reports Sumitomo told 3M last month the service would be temporarily interrupted for a week or two. The company also says the service disruption had nothing to do with the plant’s closure on Thursday. Other companies, including Evonik Active Oxygens, GM, and DuPont, all get raw water from the Niagara River, with GM and DuPont having their own intake tunnels while Sumitomo and Evonik have direct access through the Huntley generating system. Only 3M relies on Sumitomo for access. 

Meanwhile, the company says it followed all the rules by notifying employees at 9 a.m. Thursday about the closure and later filing a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice the same day. Sumitomo also said it provided union leadership with materials for employees, including an information booklet, handouts, and a website link to be shared with hourly employees about the change. Salaried employees were individually notified by phone. 

Regardless, the president of the local AFL-CIO chapter called the closure “a brutal betrayal of these workers and their families, who dedicated themselves to this company, our region, and creating world-class American union-made products.” 

“Our federation will not stand idly by as this corporate abandonment disrupts lives and devastates our local economy. Together, we will ensure that no worker is left behind,” said Peter DeJesus Jr., president of the Western New York Area Labor Federation.