Bayonne is losing another big industrial company, this one a victim of offshore competition, according to the company.
AGC Chemicals Americas, a subsidiary of the Japanese-owned company, Asahi Glass Group, said last Thursday that it would close its Bayonne manufacturing plant Dec. 31, leaving 157 employees jobless.
"AGC Chemicals worked diligently for a number of years to improve the performance of its Bayonne business," company president Masumi Suehiro said in a statement. "Unfortunately, because of poor market conditions and changing market structure, it is no longer viable for us to continue operating the Bayonne plant."
In 2003, Unilever shut its mayonnaise-processing Bestfoods plant at the southern tip of Avenue A and more than 100 workers lost jobs.
AGC, on East 22nd Street, has been in Bayonne since 1965 and has been making its current product, fluon PTFE, or Teflon, since 1969. One of the city's biggest revenue contributors, AGC will pay more than $800,000 in real estate taxes this year, City Hall records show.
Earlier this year, AGC had been in the center of a firestorm when the city threatened to exercise its right to take the parcel through eminent domain. AGC said at the time it needed the vacant land because it planned to expand operations.
Now, AGC Vice President John Bonner said AGC is ready to sell its vacant parcel to developer Cameron Bayonne, "but the deal isn't signed yet." He said the real estate closing is tentatively set for the end of November, with the land to be sold "at market value, for about $600,000 an acre."
Bonner said Bayonne workers were informed last Thursday. "A handful" of the displaced AGC work force would be transferred to the company's new North American headquarters in Exton, Pa., where it runs a technical research service facility, Bonner said.
Company officials attribute its fluon production losses to the same product being made cheaper in China and Russia.
Newark attorney Sandy Oxfeld, who has represented the AGC employees through the independent Bayonne Chemical Workers Union for more than two decades, said he was surprised that neither Bayonne nor the state interceded to find a buyer for the plant.
"How do they not come in to help broker a deal to sell the property?" Oxfeld wondered. "It's mind-boggling."
Oxfeld said the union expects to get a severance package offer from AGC by today.
"A high percentage of our employees have always lived in Bayonne," Bonner said. "It's a sad day for us."
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