The old Hugo Boss plant in Brooklyn, which was slated to close last spring, is now under new ownership as Keystone Tailored Manufacturing. Operations will begin soon.
BROOKLYN, Ohio - The old Hugo Boss plant, originally slated to close last spring, is gearing up to make Hart Schaffner Marx suits under its new ownership.
The plant on Tiedeman Road is now a Keystone Tailored Manufacturing facility. A skeletal staff has returned to the plant, but all the workers should be back by Labor Day, said Mark Milko, area director of the Workers United union. The plant has about 170 employees.
The recently formed firm is part of the W Diamond Group Corp., a Chicago-based company, which also manufactures Hart Schaffner Marx suits in the Chicago area. By making these suits in the Cleveland area at a facility with its roots in the old Joseph & Feiss Co., the W Diamond Group links two apparel legacies, each of which go back more than a century. Hugo Boss acquired Joseph & Feiss about a quarter-century ago.
"Our entire family is excited about the re-opening of the Joseph & Feiss factory here in Brooklyn, Ohio," wrote Doug Williams, W Diamond's chief executive officer. "The tradition dates back to 1870 and is truly one of the jewels of manufacturing in the history of Ohio."
That long tradition looked as though it were coming to an end last year when the corporation owning Hugo Boss, based in Germany, said it would shutter the plant in April after the union contract expired. The former company said "the inefficiencies and other challenges posed by the plant's geographic location and limited production capacity render it unsuitable for continued operation."
Manufacturing done in Brooklyn was slated to be shipped abroad. Eastern Europe was among the locations mentioned.
This wasn't the first time Hugo Boss' former owner said it would shut down the plant. Five years earlier, the owners threatened to close the plant for similar reasons. The workers fought back, including waging a media campaign, saying that the loss of the plant would have meant the loss of the American Dream for so many of these working-class employees.
The company reversed its decision to close the plant. The workers' successful fight to keep the plant open was becoming part of Cleveland folklore. Then the company said, again, last December that the plant would close.
"Last winter when over 170 Ohioans were staged to lose their jobs, the local government officials, Workers United and Keystone Manufacturing worked closely together to ensure not only will these jobs stay in Brooklyn, but will grow from their base," Williams wrote in the email. "Through the manufacturing of Hart Schaffner Marx tailored clothing for the W Diamond Group Corp., as well as additional American designers that value Made in the USA, we expect to exceed the number of garments manufactured here in the recent past.
"The facility also has an unused distribution component and we are actively working to lease this space to businesses which can add even more jobs," he wrote.
Milko, union director, said workers are pleased with Williams' philosophy about doing business.
"The greatest thing about this is that we won't have to worry about these jobs getting outsourced to Turkey or Eastern Europe or Vietnam, because Doug Williams is an entrepreneur who likes American-made goods," he said.
Friday morning, Williams along with workers, union and government officials gathered at the plant to celebrate Keystone Manufacturing gearing up for business.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, was to be among them. Brown, who was active in the first fight to keep the plant open, helped bring Hugo Boss together with W Diamond.
"For years, Brooklyn workers have produced American-made clothing with pride. Now, we celebrate a new era of tailoring at the plant with the beginning of production at Keystone Tailored Manufacturing," wrote Brown in an email.
"There's no question that Ohio's workers attracted Keystone Tailored Manufacturing to Brooklyn," he wrote. "I'm grateful for the work of W Diamond Group and Workers United in helping to save these jobs and ensuring that Ohio workers can continue manufacturing high-quality garments."
Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish was also scheduled to attend. The county is making a $650,000 loan to Keystone "to assist in the funding of building improvements, purchase of machinery and equipment, and purchase of hardware and software."
It looks as if the struggle to save the plant still has a chance of becoming part of Cleveland folklore.
"It is a plus-plus for the company because it got a good quality group of people here who know how to make a good garment," Milko said. "It's a plus-plus for the workers because they have a guy who is going to back them."
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