toledoblade.com --

OTTAWA, Ohio - Dan Irwin’s mom encouraged him to get a real-estate license years ago, just in case something happened to the factory job he started after high school.

The husband and father of three didn’t have the time - or make the time - while working at LG Philips Displays television picture-tube factory in Ottawa. But within weeks after the factory shuttered operations a year ago and terminated the job he had for 261/2 years, the Columbus Grove native had his license.

"It was kind of the jump-start that I needed," Mr. Irwin, 45, said last week.

"It’s worked out pretty well so far. I always liked my job at Philips, but I love this job."

More than 1,200 hourly and salaried employees lost their jobs last December after Ottawa’s largest employer abandoned the Putnam County village for lower costs in Mexico. Since then, about 1,100 former Philips factory workers have been searching for ways to replace jobs that paid $14 an hour on average, although about 140 either have retired or will within two years.

Some, like Mr. Irwin, have joined or started family businesses or are farming. Some are working at factories typically making around $10 or less an hour or have other lower-paying jobs. One is Janet Erford of Miller City, who is grateful for a post at the county courthouse.

Many, including medical-assistant student Aileen Berger of rural Leipsic, are getting schooling paid for through a program for workers displaced by the North American Free Trade Agreement.

But nearly a third - including Ed Andrews, head of the union representing hourly workers - remain unemployed. Some of them found jobs but have been laid off since.

Crunch time is on for 800 of the 1,100 workers, who as the most senior members of the hourly workforce received pay and benefits from Philips until about two months ago. Mr. Irwin and Mrs. Berger were among them, as was Mr. Andrews, of rural Fort Jennings, but Putnam County’s jobless rate jumped to 6.8 percent in October from 4.6 percent in September as a number of former Philips employees started drawing unemployment compensation.

The number of people working or looking for work in the county is 20,500.

Mr. Andrews, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1654, estimated that only about 40 former workers are making as much as they did at Philips. A few people have relocated to other states, at least some to be near relatives, he said.

"Around this area, the job market is not that great," said Mr. Andrews, who has a business-related bachelor’s degree.

"My future is wide open, so to speak, but there’s not a lot of wide-open positions out there."

He added: "If you get a job that starts at $10 [an hour], you’re lucky."

At the Philips factory, which most recently produced 25-inch, 27-inch, and 32-inch picture tubes, production workers assembled glass panels and other components mostly made by suppliers. The factory used adhesive and ovens to fuse glass parts together. Electricians, millwrights, pipefitters, and other skilled tradesmen had jobs there too.

For now, Mr. Andrews keeps busy with union work from an office in the former American Weatherseal plant, which moved out of Ottawa in early 2001. For example, the union has a pension-related lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court in Toledo scheduled for trial in February.

The lawsuit alleges Philips reneged on agreed-upon formulas to determine lump-sum pension payments for employees 54 and younger. Philips has asked that the lawsuit be dismissed.

So far, Mr. Irwin, the Ottawa real-estate agent, hasn’t had to sell property of a former Philips worker who ran into financial trouble. He hopes that day never comes. "I didn’t go into this business thinking I would take advantage of someone else’s bad luck," he said.

ED Andrews, head of the union representing the plant's hourly workers, is among those still unemployed.
( THE BLADE/DON SIMMONS )

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However, he said he hopes real estate eventually will provide him with the income he got from Philips. There have been lean weeks and months at the Irwin Real Estate office his mother, Teresa Irwin, opened for him in Ottawa in March, but there also have been some good payoffs, he said.

Along with steady pay, factory work provides steady benefits, Mr. Irwin noted. Many of his friends from Philips who are working lament the reduction in benefits more than in wages, he said.

Mrs. Erford is making less as a deputy clerk in the Putnam County clerk of court’s office than she did at Philips, but she got back into the public employees retirement system with the years of service she had from previous jobs. After months of searching for a job, she enrolled in a computer software training program at AEC Southern Ohio College in Findlay before finding the courthouse position and starting there in late October.

"I feel I am very fortunate to have the job I have," she said. "That’s the main thing now, is I found something I really like to do."

Mrs. Berger searched for a job for a while before enrolling full time in AEC Southern Ohio in February. She expects to graduate next December.

"I looked, but then I decided I might as well go to school and see if I can get something after my two years of school," Mrs. Berger said.

Classes for both Mrs. Erford and Mrs. Berger were paid for through a government program because their jobs were eliminated through NAFTA. About 500 former workers have been approved for the assistance in various areas of study, including nursing, paralegal, business management, and truck driving, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Those who worked within the sprawling Philips plant, meanwhile, are not the only ones affected by its closure.

The village about 65 miles southwest of Toledo expects this year to lose up to $120,000 in income tax revenues, which should total about $1.5 million. The loss next year could be as much as $600,000, said Mayor Kenneth Maag.

Ottawa, however, has had time to brace for the loss of Philips and continues to help search for another company to occupy at least part of the plant. Philips in early 2000 announced plans to move 90 percent of production to Mexico in three years, but in January, 2002, said it would shut down the entire operation by year end.

Mayor Maag said changes have been made in the village without affecting services. Ottawa, for example, has joined with other municipalities to buy water-treatment and other chemicals in bulk, he said.

"It’s not huge savings, but every little bit helps," he said.

The 7-Eleven store and Citgo station on Main Street announced last month it will close Dec. 17 after an unspecified double-digit sales decline immediately after Philips’ closure. Sales were returning to the store, which is just a few blocks from the former Philips plant, but, said Allen Friend, manager,

"It wasn’t anywhere near what we had before. When about 1,200 people stop going by your place of business every day, it makes a difference."

At another spot popular with Philips workers, the Car-E-It restaurant, bar, and party shop on Main Street, business has decreased but not as much as expected, said Marcia Hovest, assistant manager. She estimated the decline is less than 10 percent.

But because a majority of former Philips workers were paid through September, the worst may be yet to come, observed Mr. Irwin, the real-estate agent, whose office sits on a relatively active Main Street.

"We’ve really not experienced the hit yet, I don’t think," he said. "People are still hanging on, and many real disasters haven’t happened yet."

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