NOBLESVILLE, IN – Bridgestone Firestone plans to close its Noblesville plant, citing increased economic pressure from foreign competitors and a plummeting truck market. The company, which makes air springs for trucks and buses, notified its 300 employees and union leaders that the plant would close in 2009. For much of the 20th century, Firestone was Hamilton
County’s biggest employer, according to www.indystar.com.

Mike Cerio, president of Firestone Industrial Products, said the 72-year-old Noblesville plant is the only one of its three North American factories losing money, mostly because it is the only unionized plant.

The company’s domestic air spring sales are suffering because truck production and sales are down in the United States. The production and sales of semitrailers are down 40 percent in the United States since 2006. At the same time, the truck market is booming in Asia and elsewhere. Firestone also has air spring plants in Brazil and Poland.

Japan-based Bridgestone Corp., the parent company of Firestone and the world’s largest tiremaker by sales, said it would raise prices for car tires by five percent and truck tires by seven percent to compensate for higher rubber costs. The new prices will be effective Sept. 1.

The company will enter talks with the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial, and Service Workers International Union (USW) in the next six months. But he doubted that any package of union concessions would prevent the Noblesville plant from closing.