A second Bowling Green industrial operation is apparently closing up shop – by the end of the month.
Workers at Palm Plastics Ltd., 823 Miller Drive in Bellard Business Park, received layoff notices at the
end of shifts Thursday.
Two weeks ago Cooper-Standard Automotive announced it would close its hose plant on Van Camp Road,
putting about 200 people out of work, probably by the end of the year. Production is being moved to
Kentucky and Mexico.
Attempts to reach Palm officials met with no success Friday. Palm also has plants in the Williams County
village of Fayette and in Morenci, Mich.
A Palm employee who did not want to be identified said late Friday morning the notice was not a surprise.
"They have been taking presses apart and moving them out for a couple of weeks. They are keeping a
couple of people on each shift to help clean out the plant but that’s supposed to be done by the end of
next week," the laid off worker said.
The individual said that about 50 people had been working on three shifts. About half of the workers were
officially Palm employees and the rest worked via an employment agency specializing in providing
temporary employees. The employee who spoke to the Sentinel-Tribune was a Palm employee. None of the
employees belong to a union.
Palm does not own the building but leases it from REXAM, which closed its operations in the city in late
2008 and moved the work to a plant in Missouri. The building, which sits along Brim Road between Newton
and Bishop roads, has been for sale all of the time Palm operated there.
"I’m not totally surprised," Bowling Green Mayor John B. Quinn said Friday.
Quinn said the group of local officials making their annual visits to industrial concerns was at Palm
last week. "They talked about planning to be here for a long time" but had also indicated that
a pallet production line was being consolidated at the Morenci plant because of a decline in orders.
"We know it has been a tough operation out there."
Sue Clark, director of the Bowling Green Community Development Foundation, said she had not been
successful Friday trying to contact Palm officials.
In late 2010 BG Director of Utilities Kevin Maynard told the Board of Public Utilities that Palm was
increasing its electrical usage but the demand had not come near the demand REXAM before it left town.
Quinn said he was aware that Palm had "gotten up to date" with its electric bill in recent
weeks, which he had hoped was a good sign.