Remington gun plant sale has NY town worried for its future
ILION, N.Y. — Workers at the sprawling Remington factory in this upstate New York village took pride in a local gunmaking tradition stretching back to the days of flintlock rifles. Now they’re looking ahead with uncertainty.
Jacquie Sweeney and her husband were among almost 600 workers recently fired by the company, a few months after Remington Outdoor Co. sought bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years.
Successful bidders for the idled plant in bankruptcy proceedings have said they plan to restart at least some production, though details remain scarce.
There are high hopes for a successful reload of the plant that dominates the local economy. But these hopes are tempered by questions about how many workers will come back, and when.
“My husband, he’s looking for work, just like everybody else. And I plan on going back to college unless I find a job before I start that up,” said Sweeney, recording secretary for the local unit of the United Mine Workers of America. “That’s all we can really do.”
It’s common for people here to say that Ilion is Remington and Remington is Ilion. Company founder Eliphalet Remington started making flintlock rifles on his father’s forge near here in 1816, and the Ilion factory site dates to 1828. Though the company moved its headquarters to Madison, North Carolina, the old factory dominates a village that has long depended on workers making rifles and shotguns to power the economy.
Remington’s recent history has been a roller coaster ride with a lot of drops.
Layoffs have been common. The plant, which employed around 1,200 people eight years ago, was down recently to about 600 union workers plus an estimated 100 or so salaried workers. The company began moving two production lines to a new plant in Huntsville, Alabama, in 2014.
Remington dealt not only with the volatile gun market, but also legal action, after the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre. The gunman who killed 20 children and six educators at the Connecticut school used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, which once was made here.
Most workers were furloughed at the end of September as the company went through bankruptcy proceedings. Locals wondered whether it would ever restart.
The company was divvied up by multiple buyers. The bankruptcy court approved Sturm, Ruger & Co.’s $30 million bid for Marlin Firearms, which were made here, and Vista Outdoor’s $81.4 million bid for Remington’s ammunition and accessories businesses.
Roundhill Group’s $13 million bid included the Ilion firearms plant and a handgun barrel factory in Lenoir City, Tennessee.
Roundhill partner Richmond Italia, a paintball industry veteran, said he was approached by Remington CEO Ken D’Arcy about the opportunity, according to documents filed in the bankruptcy case.
Roundhill pledged in court documents to bring back at least 200 workers. They could eventually add hundreds more, but details are not clear.
Local officials believe a number of pieces need to be in place before production starts, from a collective bargaining agreement with the union to a new federal firearms license.
One likely product would be Remington’s Model 870 shotguns, said Jamie Rudwall, a district representative for the union. He said the new owners can rely on a trained workforce to produce shotguns for a hot market.
The FBI reports that it has processed more background checks to purchase or possess a firearm in the first nine months of 2020 than any previous year.
“We certainly have that capability of putting every single person back to work at 870s making literally between 1,200 and 1,800 every day. And every one of them will be sold,” said Rudwall, who once worked at the plant.