Overview  |  Stressed  |  Exhausted  |  Exploited  |  Abandoned

ABANDONED: THE CLOSING OF JONES BELOIT

"No, everything’s not okay. Because somebody hasn’t had their due. If I went and harmed somebody, physically or mentally, I would get arrested. Somebody would call the cops, if I beat you or drove you nuts or something. These people can do this and get away with it. They can ruin people’s lives that have been good employees. That isn’t the American way."

Jones Beloit, in Dalton, Massachusetts, was internationally known for their high-quality papermaking equipment. Bought in 1989 by Harnischfeger, the parent company began a risky joint venture to provide papermaking equipment for mills to be built in the Indonesia rainforest. When construction fell hopelessly behind, the company filed for bankruptcy in 1988 and closed a number of its divisions, including the plant in Dalton, which had just finished a record-setting year. Glen Bodin worked at Jones Beloit thirty-four years.

"My wife once said, right after this happened, that guys all go see a psychiatrist and talk about this and I pooh poohed her and told her, 'What are you, nuts?' She was right. Because I know it has affected me and it was affecting all my friends. And it’s devastating, that’s what it is. Because we weren’t a business, we're a family."

"My godmother’s brother was a foreman over here for years. My next door neighbor when I was a little, little kid worked there.... My oldest boy is named after a toolmaker that I worked for when I first got here. The girl in the office in Personnel, she and I went to kindergarten and through all of school together. These weren’t just people you worked with, they were sometimes your relatives, they were mostly your friends."