Navistar to cut 170 jobs at Melrose Park facility
Lisle-based Navistar said Thursday it will stop making mid-sized engines at its Melrose Park facility and cut about 170 jobs.
Affected workers can remain on the job until the engine production is completely phased out by mid-2018, said spokeswoman Lyndi McMillan.
Of the 170 jobs, about 140 are members of the Local 6 UAW union and 30 are managers and other support staff.
"Ceasing production of engines at Melrose Park is a difficult decision, but represents another important step on our journey to strengthening the company's competitiveness," Navistar Chief Operating Officer Persio Lisboa said in a statement.
When the company's Hunstville, Alabama, facility stopped making mid-sized engines in 2014, that work moved to Melrose Park. Now that Melrose Park will stop making those engines, it will be an end of an era for that product. Ending the mid-size engine production will save the company about $12 million annually, McMillan said.
The Melrose Park facility will not close and about 400 workers will remain, she said.
Navistar plans to change the facility into a technical center, including truck and engine testing as well as used truck sales and reconditioning, the company said.
A transformation of the Melrose Park facility began in 2010, when the company added a state-of-the-art truck testing and validation center at the 80-acre campus, complementing the existing engine test center there, and bringing hundreds of engineering jobs there from out of state.
Over the last several months, the company has added to its investment in Melrose Park by opening a used truck evaluation and reconditioning facility and its flagship Used Truck Sales Center. Additional consolidation in the former manufacturing space is possible in the future, which would allow even more employees in product design, engineering, service and sales units to work alongside each other.