BRILLION (NBC 26) — AriensCo announced Tuesday that the company plans to end some of the second, third, and weekend shift operators at its Brillion campus effective immediately.
Christopher McConnell works for Ariens and said he was completely surprised when he heard the news.
"I thought the company was doing well enough where layoffs wouldn't be required," he said. "I heard we were expanding to places like Kentucky and Tennessee so the fact that there's job layoffs like that surprises me."
Keith Diederich used to work as an assembler for Ariens but says he left the company shortly before the layoffs. He says he still has a lot of close friends at Ariens, who shared their experiences of hearing the news yesterday with him.
"I guess everybody was just corralled together and were told 'today's your last day, here's a week's worth of pay and your benefits end [on] Friday,'" said Diederich.
Diederich claims the layoffs came without warning and despite repeated messages from the company that jobs wouldn't be cut.
"They [told us] at the quarterly meeting not to worry about our jobs that we were safe…" he said, "it was constant reassurance, at least until I left, that 'your jobs are safe.'"
For Diederich, the layoffs demonstrate the importance of workers organizing.
"We need to advocate for workers rights and representation in business," he said," because maybe with a little bit of extra oversight from the people who actually worked the floor, they might not have made the decisions that they would've done because it might not have been in the employees' best interests."
The outdoor power equipment manufacturer said that they do intend to expand first-shift operations at the plant.
A statement from the company encourages all impacted employees to apply for about 100 new first-shift position openings.
We are rebalancing our manufacturing workforce across our different locations and shifts to maximize production output. AriensCo is immediately ending some of its Brillion campus 2nd, 3rd, and weekend shift operations. Alternatively, we are expanding the production output on 1st shift. All impacted employees are encouraged to apply for these new positions as well as other positions currently available. We have roughly 100 positions open for impacted employees to consider. No other changes are planned. We understand this rebalance directly affects employees and have provided paid time for them to apply for open roles. As a strong, family-owned company celebrating 90 years of business, AriensCo remains committed to supporting our employees, our hometown of Brillion, WI, and our customers around the world.
According to AriensCo's statement, the move is a re-balancing of the company's manufacturing workforce in their different locations across the state.
NBC 26 reached out to Ariens to determine the specific number of employees affected by the layoffs, but the company declined to provide one.
No other changes are planned at the moment for the company's corporate headquarters.
