Chicago-based R.R. Donnelley & Sons announced Thursday it is closing its Eldridge, Iowa, plant, displacing 279 workers, said Ted Harms, state rapid response coordinator for Iowa Workforce Development.
Harms said the printing company announced it will close the Eldridge plant July 31.
“I’m in Davenport today, meeting with other Iowa Workforce Development agents, and we were just saying it seems like things have been changing and moving in the right direction since the layoffs at Alcoa and Deere a few years back,” Harms said.
Then came the announcement of the closing of R.R. Donnelley.
“The company’s announcement shows a high degree of corporate responsibility,” Harms said, adding that there have been companies that have just chained their doors without informing employees or the state.
The suddenness of the announcement took Eldridge Mayor Marty O’Boyle and Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Tara Barney by surprise.
“They’ve been a good corporate citizen and have provided a good living for many people living in our city and in the surrounding cities,” O’Boyle said. “It’s tragic to many families, particularly those who have both the husband and wife working there.”
The plant is the largest employer in Eldridge, he said.
O’Boyle said that both he and Barney tried to contact officials at Donnelley’s corporate headquarters Thursday without success. The plan is to see if he and Barney can work with the company to salvage operations.
“Jointly, we’re going to make an effort to do something to hold off the closing or provide the workers with whatever we can,” he said.
Barney said she is aware the company has closed or is closing other facilities around the country this year, including plants in Greeley, Colo., South Bend, Ind., and Menasha, Wis.
But Donnelley also had a financial rebound in 2010, netting $217.1 million in 2010 as compared to a loss of $21.4 million in 2009, according to the company’s financial statements.
“Obviously, their business model is changing, is evolving,” Barney said. “We need to learn what role we might have in the new model.
“But the whole printing industry is changing. The smartest thing we can all do, the cities where there are these plants and other printing companies, is to learn how we can be a part of supporting the new business model.”
R.R. Donnelley acquired the former Von Hoffmann in January 2007. It was part of a $412.5 million deal with Visant Corp. The facility originally was Bawden Printing.
Brian Mead, of Long Grove, worked at the plant for 19 years when it was Bawden and then Von Hoffmann. He has many friends working at the plant still.
“It’s sad,” he said. “The printing industry is hurting all over the country. It’s a changing industry.”
Longtime staples of the printing industry, such as phone books, will soon be gone, while the bigger money recently has been the printing of standardized admissions tests, such as the LSAT for law school, MCAT for medical school and the ACT and SAT for high school students testing to get into colleges.
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