Allied Signal, which is closing its FRAM and Autolite divisions here, has put its building at 105 Pawtucket Avenue in the Rumford section of East Providence up for sale, while insisting it has no plans to relocate its Bendix marketing and sales operations.
Kaye Veazey, a spokesperson for Allied Signal, with headquarters in Morristown, N.J., said the company’s decision to move 60 FRAM and Autolite jobs out of Rhode Island is not a reflection on the state, but rather a consolidation of operations of its automotive products division in Danbury, Conn. and Perrysburgh, Ohio.
Building a Strong Data Foundation in the Age of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key priority in the boardroom and across management —…
Learn More
But the Bendix operation will stay in Rhode Island, Veazey said, with no plans to move that business out-of-state or downsize from the current 120 to 140 employees.
“Bendix is staying,” said Veazey, who called a number of the local media following a story in last week’s Providence Business News about the closure. “The building is for sale. We will find other space in Rhode Island.”
The employees left here, Veazey said, are in sales, marketing and customer service. “It is the administrative part of the aftermarket business – a lot of the support people for aftermarket.”
She described aftermarket to mean that once a product is manufactured, and the company is “out there selling it.”
Veazey’s call to the media was made to clarify the number of jobs that would remain in the area. A person at the Allied plant in East Providence, who was serving as its spokesperson a couple of weeks ago, had put the number at 75, rather than the 120 to 140 Veazey reported.
Veazey works out of the company’s New Jersey headquarters.
Local Allied officials last week were referring calls to Veazey. The divisions that are closing, she said, will be moved to Perrysburgh, where there are now 95 employees in the division, or Danbury, where there are 105 employees. For customers, she said, it had become confusing.
“Our customers can’t figure our where we are,” she said.
Employees in East Providence were told three weeks ago that they had until Jan. 7 to decide whether to relocate to Danbury or Perrysburgh, depending upon where their particular job would fit, or “leave the company.”
“If they decide to leave Allied Signal that’s their choice,” Veazey said.
Employees, she said, were being given the option, at company expense, to visit the Danbury or Perrysburgh areas before making a decision. If they choose to leave, their jobs likely would continue through the spring, with Veazey predicting the operations would actually close here by June.
For those who choose to relocate, she said, the company is paying for house-hunting trips, moving expenses, miscellaneous allowances, expenses involved in buying a new home, and, if necessary, temporary living costs. In some cases, she said, the company would actually purchase an employee’s home if they could not sell it themselves.
For those choosing to leave, she said, the company was offering 15 days notice for those employed less than two years and 30 days notice for those employed more than four years; one week’s pay for each year worked; and what she called a completion bonus.
Veazey explained that the completion bonus involved the employee and supervisor selecting a date the employee would sever employment. Additional severance pay, she said, would be given employees for the additional time they worked.
