By Boris Ladwig, The Republic City Editor

The Arvin Inc. merger and subsequent sale of parts of the business has increased worker uneasiness in Columbus.

The auto parts maker merged with Troy, Mich.-based Meritor Automotive Inc. in 2000.

ArvinMeritor Inc. announced recently that it will sell its Emissions Technologies group, which includes two Columbus operations that employ 950, to One Equity Partners, a New York-based equity investment firm.

The sale of the local Gladstone Plant and Walesboro Tech Center essentially marks the end of the former Columbus-based Fortune 500 company that was Arvin.

After the sale, only one ArvinMeritor facility will be left in Columbus: The North American Data Center, which was built post-merger.

"It felt to me and a lot of people that when Meritor took over, Arvin left town," said Scotty Denton, an ArvinMeritor retiree.

Denton worked at the tech center on Road 450S for 25 years, first helping to make exhaust systems for the replacement market, then for new vehicles.

He retired in 2004, at age 65, but he said that soon after the merger, the company "started getting rid of people."

Managers were let go first, workers soon followed.

"They were just weeding people out," he said.

Denton said he and others felt that Meritor took Arvin's assets to prop up its business, but that the company had no interest in the people and the community of Columbus.

When the new company started cutting jobs at the tech center, it lost a lot of expertise.

Denton, an Ogilville native and U.S. Army veteran, works part-time for Carquest, and rarely sees his former co-workers anymore.

Even when he goes to Thanksgiving or Christmas parties at the tech center, he hardly recognizes anyone. That's a sign, he said, of the quick turnover of employees - a marked changed to his tenure, when many people stayed for decades.

"I think (the merger) has really hurt the community," he said.

Uneasiness

Bradley Clark, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1424, said the sale has caused fear among employees who know little about the purchasing company, One Equity Partners.

Three weeks ago, OEP agreed to pay $310 million for the Emissions Technologies group, which includes the plant where Clark works.

Clark said he is confident the number of employees will stay "fairly constant" and that job responsibilities will stay the same.

Workers have enough work booked to keep busy through 2008, and enough projected to keep them busy through 2009, he said.

But nervousness accompanies change, especially when the change comes in a way that keeps employees ignorant of the details.

"It's pretty bad when you have to learn news of this magnitude from the news media rather than those who are conducting the transaction," he said.

Clark said the fear of losing their jobs has kept employees on edge since the merger.

He said quality has suffered and company morale has taken a hit.

Work goes on

But work at other former Arvin plants, the AK Steel facility on Road 450S, for example, continues much as it did under the old name.

Alan McCoy, vice president for government and public relations for AK Steel Corp., said employment at the plant is at 110, down about 6 percent since the purchase.

A multiyear supply agreement with ArvinMeritor remains, he said, but AK Tube LLC also has invested in the business, has diversified and continues to look for new customers.

McCoy said he could not provide details on how wages and benefits compared to what they were before the purchase.

But Denton, the retiree, said the atmosphere in the plants changed after the merger.

In the old days, the executives would visit the manufacturing plants and know the workers by name, he said.

Today, "there's no care for the people," he said. "It's just greed."

"Were the employees first or second?" Mayor Fred Armstrong asked.

"I'm guessing second. That's business," he said.

But developments in Columbus have paralleled situations all across the nation in the last five, six years, he said.

"A lot of things aren't what they used to be. There'll be more changes," the mayor said.

"Nothing stays the same anymore."

Republic reporter Paul Minnis contributed to this report.
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