If you want fries with that, you have several downtown dining options.But fast food – which is sold on dozens of street corners around town – isn’t enough to draw people to the city’s core.An Auburn auto-parts supplier cut its workforce in half Friday after losing a key contract, a corporate spokesman confirmed Monday.
Contech Castings on Friday eliminated 130 jobs that paid $10 to $15 an hour, depending on skills and time on the job, said Robert LaCourciere, Detroit-based vice president of sales and communications for Revstone Transportation Group.
Private equity firm Revstone Industries acquired auto-parts plants in Auburn and Pierceton from bankrupt Contech LLC for $13 million in June 2009. The Auburn factory employed 134 at the time with 33 on layoff.
Contech Castings, 1200 Power Drive, Auburn, is now part of the Revstone Cast Metals family, according to its website.
The job cuts were chosen based on which work lines supplied a contract lost this month, LaCourciere said.
"To not react would have put everything else at risk," he said.
For more on this story, see Tuesday's print edition of The Journal Gazette or visit www.journalgazette.net after 3 a.m. Tuesday.
sslater@jg.net
