Former Hartwell Employer Tenneco Closing More N. American Plants

Tenneco Inc. has announced plans to close more plants as part of a major international restructuring effort.

In 2019, the auto parts manufacturer closed their Hartwell plant, which made shock absorbers, throwing some 600 employees out of work, and moved that operation to their Kettering, OH plant.

Then last Thursday, officials also announced the closing of their Kettering, OH plant – eliminating some 700 jobs.

Late last month, Tenneco said they would close four more plants in North America.

The other two North American plants they intend to close are in Evansville, IN and Milan, OH.

A fourth North American plant closure has not yet been announced.

Tenneco is also in the process of restructuring its Dunsborough, Australia engineering operation.

Company officials blame the closures on the worsening industry downturn, according to a report in BizJournal.com.

The closures will account for 1,100 jobs worldwide and five facilities.

In the years before it closed, the Hartwell Tenneco plant was fined a number of times by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for unsafe work conditions.

Between 2012 and 2014, Tenneco was cited by OSHA for numerous and repeated safety violations and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 2013, a group of Hartwell plant employees sued Tenneco claiming they became ill after being exposed to the chemical hexavalent chromium, which causes cancer.

In 2014, OSHA placed Tenneco on its Severe Violator Enforcement Program list for, “demonstrating indifference to its OSHA Act obligations to provide a safe and healthful workplace for employees.”

The Company left Hartwell with polluted ground and water.

An underground plume was discovered in the mid-80s, but Company officials promised they will continue to work with the State Environmental Protection Division to remediate the property even after the plant had closed.