Wheatland Tube closes Southwest Side plant, lays off workers

Steel pipe manufacturer Wheatland Tube is shuttering a factory on Chicago’s Southwest Side and laying off more than 230 workers there, the company reported in a state filing Friday.

Wheatland Tube is a subsidiary of Chicago-based Zekelman Industries, headquartered at 227 W. Monroe St. in the Loop. Wheatland Tube, which says its clients include North American transportation systems and the U.S. Department of Defense, is headquartered in both Rochelle, Illinois, and Wheatland, Pennsylvania. The steel pipe manufacturer also has factories in Ohio, Alabama and Missouri.

Wheatland Tube reported the closure of its 4435 S. Western Blvd. factory in accordance with Illinois’ Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies to report certain mass layoffs and plant closures two months in advance.

Layoffs at the factory will begin about Nov. 1 and continue on a rolling basis through next year, a company spokesperson said. The company did not provide an exact date on which the factory would close.

Zekelman, which calls itself the largest independent steel pipe and tube manufacturer in North America, owns a family of manufacturers in addition to Wheatland Tube, including Chicago-based Atlas Tube. A Wheatland spokesperson said no other factory closures were on the horizon.

Some factory workers at the Chicago plant have been offered the opportunity to transfer to other Zekelman factories, human resources Vice President Jennifer Murphy said in a statement.

“For employees who are not interested in transferring, or for whom opportunities are not available, we will offer broad transition support inclusive of severance and outplacement services,” she said.

In a statement provided to the Tribune, Zekelman attributed the closing of the Chicago plant in part to what it described as a “surge” of imported steel from Mexico, saying the U.S. was not enforcing a Trump-era trade agreement that would allow it to tax Mexican steel imports at a higher rate of 25%.

In July, President Joe Biden’s administration announced a tariff of 25% on steel imported through Mexico that was made elsewhere in an attempt to address tariff evasion by China. Last year, 13% of steel imported through Mexico was melted or poured outside the country.

In 2022, CEO Barry Zekelman, who is Canadian, was fined after the Federal Election Commission found he had helped illegally route $1.75 million in donations from Wheatland Tube to a pro-Trump super PAC as a foreign national, according to The New York Times. The Times reported that Zekelman’s donations to the super PAC had helped him secure an invitation to a dinner with the former president at which he lobbied Trump to curb foreign steel imports.

Zekelman paid a fine of $975,000 — at the time the third-largest the FEC had levied in its history — to settle the case. The FEC found the violation had not been knowing or willful.

The Associated Press contributed.