Toolmaker to downsize Greenfield facility, terminate 139 employees

Stanley Black & Decker Inc. plans to significantly downsize its Greenfield production plant, putting 139 people out of a job sometime over the next few months.

The cutbacks will leave just 40 employees in Greenfield, a company spokeswoman said.

In a letter the company sent to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, the New Britain, Connecticut-based tool maker said the decision was “an attempt to strategically consolidate our worldwide operations into [a] few facilities.”

The letter provides a confusing timeline for the terminations, saying the actions would take place “by year end,” but also saying “the last day of work for the Greenfield employees is expected to be some time between Jan. 23 and Feb. 7.

Assembly and production employees make up more than half of the workforce at the facility at 501 W. New Road, but the list of eliminated positions also includes shipping and receiving personnel, maintenance and facilities employees, engineers, technicians and managers.

The company said it will continue to employ 820 people in Indiana at facilities in Fishers and Montpelier.

In a call with analysts late last month, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Donald Allan said Stanley Black & Decker was planning to cut $200 million in annual costs “from headcount actions across the company as well as executing some footprint rationalization opportunities.”

Allen said the company was taking the actions in response to currency issues, tariffs and “softness in the industrial and emerging market.”

The Greenfield facility was in expansion mode as recently as 2015. In May of that year, Stanley Black & Decker announced it would invest $7.7 million to renovate and equip its 220,000-square-foot plant in the Hancock County community, adding 136 jobs by 2018.

At the time, the company had 111 Greenfield employees and more than 1,300 around Indiana.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered Stanley Black & Decker up to $625,000 in tax credits and up to $200,000 in training grants based on those job-creation plans. The company has collected about $66,000 in tax credits and $76,000 in training grants as part of that deal, according to the IEDC web site.

Stanley Black & Decker, which acquired Indianapolis-based Best Lock Corp. in 2002, has the headquarters for its Stanley Security Solutions division in Fishers.

Editor’s note: This story originally referred to the downsizing in Greenfield as a closure due to an error in the company’s notice to the state.