91 to lose jobs in Spinnaker plant closing

WESTBROOK – Spinnaker Industries is closing its Westbrook plant in July, the specialty paper company announced Tuesday.

The closure means that 91 people at the Spinnaker Coating plant will lose their jobs.

“The decision to shut the Maine facility is not something we take lightly, but is a step we feel is essential to the company’s future,” Louis A. Guzzetti Jr., Spinnaker Industries’ chairman, said in a written statement.

He said the company would sell some of Spinnaker Coating’s assets to Fasson Roll North America, a division of Avery Dennison Corp.

“We have chosen to work with Fasson Roll North America because we believe that together we can provide a seamless transition for the customers served by our Maine facility,” he said.

Spinnaker Industries bought part of the S.D. Warren paper mill three years ago.

“They have been in a very tough market for quite a while,” Westbrook Mayor Don Esty said. “A lot of people had understood or expected some kind of downsizing, but people were generally surprised that they shut the place down.”

Esty said he is “committed to working with everyone to help make sure that whatever training or other services or re-employment issues there are, we’ll be involved in making that work, as we have done before.”

Tom Lestage, president of Local 1-1069 of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, said the union will also be looking out for workers.

Lestage said the union and the company would jointly apply for benefits through the federal Trade Readjustment Act, which provides money for retraining if people lose jobs to foreign trade. They will also bring in groups to offer seminars to teach skills like resume writing and build other skills, he said.

Spinnaker Coating, based in Troy, Ohio, is owned by Spinnaker Industries. The coating company makes paper for adhesive labels, including paper used for postage stamps.

Spinnaker Coating’s president and chief executive officer, K.C. Caldabaugh, said that separate business functions are being merged. The plants in Troy and Westbrook, which were managed separately, will be merged.

“We are modifying our overall vision, strategy and company structure to reflect the fact that our core competencies are defined more from our relationship with key customers than merely providing quality products,” Caldabaugh said in a statement.