Last day of work comes for hundreds at Evansville Whirlpool plant

For most of the Whirlpool employees who lost their jobs today, next week will be a time to apply for unemployment benefits, take steps to enroll in training or school and otherwise prepare for a future with fewer opportunities for blue collar workers.

Leaving the company’s plant off U.S. 41 for the last time Friday, Blaine Miller, who is 44, said he isn’t sure where he will turn next for employment.

“The factory jobs are leaving this area,” he said. “And there is so much competition with the kids coming out of college these days.”

Miller was among the 455 workers whose final day at Whirlpool was Friday. Some of them retired, but most were laid off as a step in the company’s plan to shut down its Evansville factory and move production from there to a new plant in Mexico.

Miller said workers with the fewest years of experience at Whirlpool were the first to go. His 18 years of employment brought him close — but not close enough — to being among roughly 650 of his colleagues who will keep their jobs until June, when the entire factory will shut down.

Miller and other workers said they are grateful for the training offered them through the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, meant to help those who lose jobs because of foreign trade. Miller said he is thinking about taking classes at Ivy Tech Community College.

For John Walker, who lives in Newburgh, Ind., the circumstances could have been far worse. He was part of a group hired about half a year ago to help with production during the final months of the plant. That made his tenure long enough to let him qualify for training assistance but not long enough to become dependent on Whirlpool, he said. He said he lost a job at Ford warehouse in Princeton, Ind., last year, an experience that prepared him for unemployment.

His goal now is to return to school and become a manufacturing engineer.

“I may not be as much trouble as some people who have spent their whole lives out there,” he said. “Some of them haven’t set a foot in college. They went right out of high school and into the working world.”

Jim Heck, the executive director of Grow Southwest Indiana Workforce, said a delegation met with workers about two weeks ago to tell them how to apply for the Trade Adjustment Assistance program. All of those being laid off qualify for the help, he said, although some have declined it.

And for the next two weeks, staff from offices overseen by Heck will be at the union hall of Local 808 of the United Steelworkers, which represents many Whirlpool employees. Their chief duty will be to help in filling out applications for unemployment benefits.

Assisting them will be 40 computers from nearby colleges, universities and the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel said, “We will continue to offer assistance to these hard-working men and women so that they may secure other employment or pursue further educational opportunities.”

A different kind of delegation greeted workers Friday as they left the plant. Waitresses from the local Hooters restaurant handed out coupons and hot wings in Styrofoam containers.

Directing his colleagues to pick up the food on the grassy easement along U.S. 41 — Whirlpool insisted nonemployees stay off the plant ground — Bill Robertson said his greatest anxieties come from the prospect of shopping for health insurance. His Whirlpool severance package and unemployment benefits should provide enough income to carry him to his next job, but begin to seem meager once the cost of insurance is considered. Robertson said he knows too little about the health care bill President Obama signed into law this week to expect help from it.

“My wife is sick,” Robertson said. “She has diabetes, and I need insurance more than anything.”

Even so, Robertson isn’t letting the job loss spoil all of his fun.

“My immediate plan is going to Florida for vacation,” he said.

Friday also marked the end of the plant’s second production shift. When the entire factory is shut down in June, Whirlpool will be ending its employment of 1,100 workers in the Evansville area. The only operation left will be a product-design center, which employs about 300 people.

Debby Castrale, a plant spokeswoman, said, “We are sadly saying goodbye to many good people. As they move to the next phase of their lives, we sincerely wish them the best.”