Jeffboat consists of many service areas, steel yards and assmbly and productions lines, spanning 80 acres on the Jeffersonville shorelie. Staff file photo by Josh Hicks
JEFFERSONVILLE — Jeffboat LLC will be laying off approximately 278 people in the coming months, according to a WARN notice filed with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.
The layoffs, which began Wednesday, are in response to an “industry-wide” decrease in demand for the barges that Jeffboat manufacturers at its 1030 E. Market St. facility in Jeffersonville. The business creates custom ocean vessels and towboats, but mostly inland barges, and has since 1938.
Anywhere from 800 to 1,000 people are employed at the shipyard at any one time, depending on what kind of projects on which the company is working. In June, Jeffboat was employing 1,060 people, according to One Southern Indiana. They were the seventh-largest employer in Clark and Floyd counties in 2016.
Layoffs are expected to continue at a minimum through the end of March. Thirty-five salaried employees are part of the layoffs, as well as 122 welders, 77 fitters and several other manufacturing workers. The majority of the affected employees are represented by the Teamsters Local 89 union.
WorkOne is meeting with Jeffboat management next week to plan rapid response events for the business, said Jacqueline James, operations manager for WorkOne Southern Indiana. The events are information sessions intended to help laid-off workers find new jobs.
Jeffboat doesn’t currently intend on closing its facility, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN).
The business is owned by American Commercial Barge Line, which was bought by Platinum Equity, a Los Angeles private equity firm in 2010. The company breathed new life into ACBL by using computer models and data analysis to create a new strategy for the company, according to Carl Kramer, a Clark County historian. But the company experienced rough times before then.
Jeffboat shut down in 1986 for three years when a boom in barge-making went bust. In 2003, ACBL filed for bankruptcy protection.
The WARN Act protects workers, their families and communities by requiring employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of plant closings and layoffs affecting 100 or more workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s website.
© 2024 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.