Factory Closings

First, Tao Shoulong burned his company's financial books. He then sold his private golf club memberships and disposed of his Mercedes S-600 sedan. And then he was gone. And just like that, China's biggest textile dye operation -- with four factories, a campus the size of 31 football fields, 4,000 workers and debts of at least $200 million -- was history. "We're pretty much dead now," said Mao Youming, one of 300 suppliers stiffed last month by Tao's company, Jianglong Group.

Blaming a "fundamentally changed" solar industry and plunging business in Europe, panel maker First Solar Inc. is cutting 2,000 jobs and closing a factory. The layoffs represent 30% of the workforce of the Tempe, Ariz., company, which is the leading U.S. manufacturer of photovoltaic solar panels — the type commonly found on rooftops. The factory being closed is in Frankfurt, Germany. In addition, the company will indefinitely idle four production lines at its facility in Kulim, Malaysia, as of May 1. Some U.S. employees of the company will also be cut, though First Solar did not disclose how many.

A&E Systems, a recreational vehicle awning and equipment manufacturer that in May employed 400 people in Orange County, will close its plant here by the end of the month in part because of strict regional air pollution regulations. The company has been gradually laying off workers in the past three months and fewer than 50 workers remain at the plant. Manufacturing at the facility, which is up for lease, ceased Aug. 10. Company officials would not comment on the closing.

Question: I am worried about my Sony Corp. stock. Do you see any kind of upturn ahead? Answer: This is a trying time for the consumer electronics and entertainment giant. Among its woes are the slow economy, a campaign of cyber attacks on the company's online video game service, and supply disruptions caused by Japan's earthquake and tsunami. Longer-term, Sony must adapt quickly and effectively to shifting trends. If it can't, it won't be able to command premium prices, despite its premium-brand reputation.

More than 200 workers protested the closure of a factory that once made souvenirs for Walt Disney Co. in southern China, an official and a labor activist said. The factory, owned by Huangxing Light Manufacturing, closed Thursday in the city of Shenzhen, leaving 800 employees jobless and without compensation, said Vivian Yau, spokeswoman of Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, a Hong Kong-based labor group. Several workers were arrested but later released, Yau said.

In one of the final scenes of the western "Big Jake," John Wayne could have been talking about the Winchester rifle as he reflected on the passing of the Old West. "Well," says Big Jake to his Apache sidekick, "times change -- usually for the better." The sign of changing times for the Winchester -- the "Gun That Won the West" and the brand most closely associated with Wayne's long career in film Westerns -- is that it will no longer be made in America.

For years, Sunbeam Chairman "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap has been working from the same script: Move into a company, announce mass firings and watch the company's stock soar. That strategy worked for the 60-year-old Dunlap--until this week. On Monday, Sunbeam's battered stock dropped $2.06, or 7.4%, to $25.75, near its lowest level in a year, after officials reported a first-quarter loss and plans to close eight plants and fire about 6,000 more workers.

Hunt-Wesson Inc. said Friday that it will close its historic Hunt Foods tomato processing plant in Fullerton, one of Southern California's largest remaining food canneries, laying off 325 full-time workers and eliminating 450 seasonal canning jobs. The 62-year-old Fullerton plant was the late billionaire Norton Simon's first food-processing business, which he grew into the multibillion-dollar Hunt-Wesson powerhouse.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s decision to abandon its assembly line in Fremont marks the end of large-scale auto manufacturing in California, which over the years boasted a dozen or more plants building vehicles ranging from Studebakers to Camaro muscle cars. The Japanese automaker said Thursday that it would end production at the plant March 31, throwing 4,700 people out of work, and return some production to Japan. It's another hard blow for California, a state already grappling with an 11.9% unemployment rate -- its highest since World War II and the fourth-worst in the nation.

Brown Group Plans to Close Plants, Cut 2,400 Jobs: The St. Louis-based shoe company reported a second-quarter net loss of $8.4 million, or 48 cents a share, down from a profit of $7.4 million, or 42 cents a share, for the quarter last year. Revenue declined to $342.9 million from $353 million. The loss includes a $9.6-million, or 55 cent a share, after-tax charge to cover the cost of factory closings. The plants to be closed are in Cabool and Steelville, Mo.; Dyer and Lexington, Tenn.

Toyota Motor Corp. may shoulder almost all the costs of closing a California joint-venture plant because the new owner of General Motors Corp.'s 50% stake doesn't plan to fund worker severance pay and other expenses. "Motors Liquidation is not contributing at all" to the closure costs, said Tim Yost, a spokesman for Detroit-based Motors Liquidation Corp., which took over discarded assets from GM as part of the carmaker's bankruptcy reorganization. "We don't believe there will be a requirement for us to do so."

A state panel that hands out worker training funds to employers delayed voting on a $2-million request from a soon-to-close Bay Area automaker that builds Toyotas. Panel members said Friday that before agreeing to reimburse the factory for training autoworkers, they wanted to know more about when the plant's partners knew they were closing the last automobile factory in California. The factory, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. in Fremont, is a joint venture between Toyota Motor Corp.

The days are officially numbered for Hollywood's Knitting Factory. A spokesman said the club will host its last show on Oct. 25, with pop-punk band Hit the Lights currently booked on the venue's final day. The Knitting Factory's flier for its final Hollywood shows teases that a new venue is opening in 2010. Bruce Duff, the club's head of promotion and publicity, said nothing has yet been finalized on a new locale, although "several are in the running." The Knitting Factory opened in Hollywood in 2000, about a year before the official opening of the outdoor mall at the nearby intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.

Whirlpool Corp. said it would cut 1,100 jobs and close a refrigerator factory in Indiana to trim excess production capacity by next year. Whirlpool plans to move the production of refrigerators with freezers on top to a company location in Mexico. Ice makers produced in Evansville, Ind., are to be moved to an as-yet undecided location. The jobs will be eliminated in mid-2010, the Benton Harbor, Mich.-based appliance maker said.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s decision to abandon its assembly line in Fremont marks the end of large-scale auto manufacturing in California, which over the years boasted a dozen or more plants building vehicles ranging from Studebakers to Camaro muscle cars. The Japanese automaker said Thursday that it would end production at the plant March 31, throwing 4,700 people out of work, and return some production to Japan. It's another hard blow for California, a state already grappling with an 11.9% unemployment rate -- its highest since World War II and the fourth-worst in the nation.

Toyota Motor Corp. appears to be moving closer to shuttering California's last auto plant. The Japanese automaker plans to start talks next week that could dissolve New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or NUMMI, which opened in Fremont in 1984 as a 50-50 joint venture of Toyota and then-General Motors Corp.

Thomson Consumer Electronics, the nation's largest maker of televisions, said it will cut more than 1,500 jobs from two U.S. factories and move the work to Mexico, where labor is cheaper. With the factory closings, the company will effectively get out of the U.S. TV-assembly business. It will remain a maker of TV parts. Thomson, which makes RCA, GE and ProScan TV sets, plans to shut its Bloomington, Ind., plant, which employs 1,100 people.

Southern California's long history as an auto manufacturing center ended Thursday morning when a flame-red Chevrolet Camaro rolled off the assembly line at the General Motors plant in Van Nuys, the last of 6.3 million vehicles built there over 45 years. The GM plant once symbolized the region's manufacturing might, and it helped foster development in surrounding San Fernando Valley communities.

When Chrysler announced it was filing for bankruptcy, the mayor here called for a new municipal requirement: All city workers who don't drive an American car must buy one or find a new job. In this blue-collar suburb north of Detroit -- where officials say unemployment hovers around 20% and at least one-third of the 138,000 residents rely on the automotive industry for their livelihood -- Mayor James Fouts' wistful proviso is more than a plea for consumer patriotism.

General Motors may halt production at some U.S. factories for as long as nine weeks this summer to combat slumping auto sales, according to people familiar with the plan. GM typically closes its facilities for two weeks in July to change production lines for new models. Much like over the winter holidays, the automaker may extend that scheduled shutdown at unproductive plants to help bring down the stockpile of unsold vehicles.