Turbine plant on verge of closing

300 jobs in Tillsonburg in jeopardy as Siemens locks doors ahead of meeting

Tillsonburg is teetering on the edge of losing 300 jobs at one of its largest employers.

The closing or temporary shutdown of Siemens Canada’s wind turbine blade plant in the Southwestern Ontario town would also raise questions about the fallout from Ontario’s controversial green energy policy.

Rumours of some kind of looming shutdown or closing at Siemens, one of four green energy plants lured to Ontario under a controversial multi-billion-dollar provincial deal with Korean industrial giant Samsung, began a few weeks ago and intensified over the weekend.

A four-year Siemens employee said workers who called the plant’s sick line over the weekend were told there was no production Monday and were to attend a Tuesday morning meeting at the town community centre.

“It was the joke around there that they were just going to lock the doors, but we didn’t think it was going to happen,” said the man, who did not want to be named.

Workers who showed up at the plant for the midnight shift Sunday found the doors locked and called security, another employee said.

They were played a recording saying production was halted and they were required to attend Tuesday’s meeting.

“They got locked out! With no notice! It’s very scary for us,” the worker said in an email.

Other workers who showed up Monday morning for their shifts were given a paper telling them the same thing, a worker said.

One employee said they’d heard earlier the plant would shut down in July.

“It’s not really a big surprise,” said the employee, who asked not to be identified.

A company notice obtained by the London Free Press requires employees to attend a 10 a.m. meeting at the Tillsonburg Community Centre, but provides no other details.

The meeting — and what it might mean for the workers and the town — comes almost a year after the province pulled the plug on major new green energy projects.

Ontario — where electricity prices have basically doubled over the last decade, and where the energy file has become hugely political heading into next year’s election — had started the process to contract for an additional 600 megawatts of wind energy, requiring construction of about a dozen new wind farms.

But amid rising criticism and after reports indicated Ontario will have enough generation capacity for at least a decade, the Liberal government suspended plans for new projects in September. Projects already in development weren’t affected.

“Clearly, the Liberal government should be working to build and promote our manufacturing sector — not set up situations where we’re losing these jobs,” said MPP Peter Tabuns, the NDP energy critic at Queen’s Park. “There seems to be a growing disinterest on the part of the Liberals to actually invest in green energy. I think that may well lock us out of where the rest of the world is going in terms of energy technology.”

Conservative energy critic Todd

Smith, the MPP for Prince Edward Hastings, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault’s office said, in a written statement, “the province has no comment on what is only speculation at this time.”

The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWea), an industry umbrella group, says the market remains healthy in Ontario, regardless of the news from Siemens.

Despite the province’s decision last fall to suspend new projects, there are orders to fill in Ontario and bids for projects in Alberta and Saskatchewan, said Brandy Giannetta, CanWea’s Ontario regional director.

“The outlook is positive,” Giannetta said, declining to comment on the Siemens situation.

Tillsonburg Mayor Stephen Molnar refused to comment before information is shared with employees.

“I’m not prepared, nor would I be responsible, to make any comment in advance of the meeting.”

In 2010, four plants to make parts for wind and energy farms were set up under the Samsung deal between the company and the province to generate power for Ontario and create manufacturing jobs in green energy.

The four plants were to create about 1,000 jobs.

In exchange, Ontario agreed to buy heavily-subsidized power from Samsung wind and solar projects and guarantee the company space on the province’s crowded electricity transmission grid.

The Liberal government, sharply criticized over the cost of the agreement, later renegotiated it after the company missed some deadlines, slashing by more than one-third of the nearly $10 billion in power it agreed to buy and reducing to $5 billion from $7 billion Samsung ’s investment commitment.

While wind energy has its supporters, fierce opposition in rural communities — especially in Southwestern Ontario, home to the largest number of wind turbines in Ontario — remains and helped defeat two prominent Liberal cabinet ministers in the region in the 2011 election. Much of the opposition has focused on the loss of local control, taken away by the province, over where the megaprojects can be built.