Contractor To Shut Down Joliet Plant As Caterpillar Reportedly Plans Back-Door Move To Mexico

Screen capture from Bergstrom’s corporate website of Caterpillar assembly plant at 540 Joyce Road, Joliet, IL.

A Joliet assembly facility contracted to make cabs for Caterpillar Inc. will cease operations on May 1, when Caterpillar is reportedly expected to finish transferring the lines to Monterrey, Mexico.

Bergstrom Inc., a global designer and manufacturer of climate control systems for off-highway machinery, has produced cabs for Caterpillar’s hydraulic excavators and motor graders at 540 Joyce Road in Joliet since 1998. Bergstrom’s global headquarters is located in Rockford.

In a separation letter dated Feb. 17 exclusively provided to Patch, Bergstrom employees were informed that the “customer has made the business decision to move those assembly lines and consolidate them with assembly lines that it already operates in Monterrey, Mexico.”

>>RELATED: Caterpillar to Move 2 Production Lines Out of Joliet for Mexico

The letter went on to explain that the plant’s 80 employees, who make between $8.50 and $19 an hour, would be terminated. The transfer is expected to be completed by May 1, when Bergstrom’s Caterpillar assembly plant will cease operations.

Although the letter to employees does not mention Caterpillar specifically by name, the Joyce Road plant is referenced on Bergstrom’s corporate website as a “contract assembly plant dedicated to assembling cabs for Caterpillar.”

Repeated phone calls to Bergstrom Inc.’s Joliet assembly facility were not returned.

The back door move out of Joliet precedes an announcement Caterpillar made in March that two production lines would be transferred from Caterpillar-Joliet to Mexico by 2018, with a loss of 230 local jobs. Caterpillar has cited the move as a cost-saving measure.

A Caterpillar representative denied that the company was ending its relationship with Bergstrom, nor would the representative answer direct questions whether Caterpillar was planning to move the supplier’s lines from Joliet to Mexico.

According to a former Bergstrom employee, he and other employees at the Joyce Road plant have spent the past several months training Caterpillar employees from Mexico “how to do our jobs.”

“Caterpillar was always at our facility,” the former employee said. “As it was coming to a close you’re watching [Caterpillar] determine what to take out of the building. It was a fun couple of months.”

Bergstrom also told employees in the letter that it planned to consolidate operations at the supplier’s second Joliet facility at 4060 Mound Road, which produces cabs for Caterpillar’s large trucks. Both Joliet assembly facilities are non-union shops.

So that there would be no production disruptions, Bergstrom offered the Joyce Road employees who stayed until the facility shut down a weekly incentive of $100 to be paid out when their jobs were terminated.

Employees were also offered the opportunity to apply for 30 positions at Bergstrom’s Mound Road facility, that would be open to non-Bergstrom employees.

“[Bergstrom] told us plain and simple that the product is going away and they would no longer be responsible for it,” the former employee said. “The thing that bothers me is that Caterpillar came into our building and said, ‘you guys ain’t union so you have nothing to worry about.’”