Adient Tillsonburg closes its doors without warning, over 200 jobs lost

The Adient plant in Tillsonburg, Ont. is seen on Nov. 15, 2022. (Marek Sutherland/CTV News London)

Bill Beaumont is in his 46th year working at Adient Tillsonburg, an auto manufacturing plant that made seats and components. Beaumont was working the overnight shift when he received a notice from the company early Tuesday morning.

“When they handed out that notice, you knew right away something was up because never in my lifetime there have I received the notice quite written like that,” he explained. “So we pretty much knew it was going to be something major.”

The announcement came at 11:00 a.m., all 190 union employees, as well as salaried and management positions, would be eliminated and the plant shuttered.

“It's a blow to us. I mean, like I say, we put our heart and soul in that place,” Beaumont told CTV News London.

Beaumont said the company told the workers the move was to create more efficiency by moving the production to Michigan. The company had just hired over 100 employees in 2019 after winning a contract to build seats for the Ford F-150.

Deb Gilvesy was sworn in as mayor of Tillsonburg Tuesday night, but is disappointed in the announcement.

“We as a town, our first and foremost concern is helping and aiding those 200 plus people and connecting them to the local job market,” Gilvesy said.

Beaumont will not be one of those looking for new work, telling CTV News London, “I was looking at retirement. I'm lucky that I'm at the age where I can and this isn't going to be a hit on me. You know that big of a hit compared to some of them there, so I feel sorry for them.”

Gilvesy said the city is already looking at how to help those affected make the transition to new jobs.

“If there's any hope on the horizon, it's that there's a lot of jobs available right now in Tillsonburg manufacturing,” said Gilvesy. “They can reach out to the town economic development officer who's already starting to put things in motion to aid in the job search.”

Adient told employees severance payments will be made within 14 days as per their collective bargaining agreement. However, a clause in the contract that would give employees six months notice was not honoured, which is painful for workers this close to the holidays.

“I think they should have had the decency of giving us a much longer time...to soak it in and prepare for it,” said Beaumont.

Adient is a global company with over 150,000 employees in 33 countries around the globe, according to the company’s website.