BROOKLYN, Ohio -- It takes a lot to please just about everyone.
But it appears that all the parties involved in the deal to sell the Hugo Boss plant on Tiedeman Road to W Diamond Group Corp., which manufactures Hart Schaffner Marx suits in Chicago, are pleased with the pending transaction.
At Friday's news conference at the factory, where the sale, which should be completed within a month, was officially announced, contentment was the theme. The seller was pleased. The buyer was delighted. Members of the Workers United union who attended the event were ecstatic that they would keep their jobs.
Hugo Boss previously had said the plant would shut down in April if a buyer could not be found. About 160 workers at the factory belong to the union and another dozen or so are non-union employees.
"I'm happy," said a beaming Sheila McVay, vice president of the union at the plant. "I have a job!"
McVay and Wanda Navarro, president of the union at the plant, became the public face of the struggle to keep the factory open five years ago when Hugo Boss wanted to shutter the facility and move production abroad. The workers said they not only fought to save their positions, but also to preserve decent-paying jobs with benefits for the working class in a post-recession economy where low-wage jobs with no benefits were proliferating.
The union successfully won that battle through a high-profile campaign that even extended to the red carpet at the Academy Awards, as Danny Glover got his fellow actors to boycott by not wearing Hugo Boss apparel.
When Hugo Boss officials announced last December that they would close the plant in the spring, the union was gearing up to wage another campaign to keep it open. Then Noel Beasley, international president of Workers United, approached Doug Williams, the chief executive officer of W. Diamond.
Beasley asked him if his company was interested in buying the Hugo Boss plant. When Williams said yes, the union enlisted the help of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio -- who had been part of the effort five years ago to keep the plant open -- to set up a meeting between W. Diamond and Hugo Boss officials.
Richard Monje, the union's international vice president, said after the news conference that W. Diamond was a natural choice because the union has had a good relationship with the manufacturers of Hart Schaffner Marx suits since 1910. He said Hugo Boss workers are expected to ratify a new contract with their new employer soon with compensation similar to what they currently receive.
The first meeting between the two companies occurred in January, said Markus Neubrand, chief executive officer of Hugo Boss Americas.
"When W Diamond approached us, we were really very optimistic that it would be a unique opportunity to retain all jobs in Cleveland," he said after the news conference. "When I contacted them the first time, it seemed like a real solution and a real deal."
Neubrand declined to reveal the details of the pending sale, including price. He said the sale was certain to go through.
"We have the structure in place, otherwise we would not have made the announcement today," he said. "We are very pleased today about making the announcement about the sale."
Neubrand said the most important thing to the company was making sure the jobs would be saved.
"If we found a deal that could retain all the jobs in Cleveland, then that was more important than to get a higher selling price," he said.
Williams said it was a big benefit to have the chance to employ about 170 people with a background in manufacturing men's suits. Today, most apparel manufacturing is done abroad, so finding workers with experience in the field is often difficult. Still there is demand for domestic apparel, he said. Williams said the Chicago facility is operating at capacity.
"Everything comes back to the American consumer," he said. "There is a desire to buy 'Made in the U.S.A.'"
Williams said once the sale goes through, expect for his company to be hanging around the Cleveland area for quite a while. He said the company isn't guided by "decisions that are made for what is the share price for the quarter."
"W Diamond is a family company, we don't report to Wall Street," he said. "We don't report to anybody but my family."
Williams added. "We don't make decisions on the short-term. It is really the long-term."
Such statements were comforting to employees such as Navarro. Though these workers had done what many considered the nearly impossible -- keeping the plant from closing in 2010 -- she said hope sank for many employees in December when they learned of the company's plans to shutter the facility. Then last Wednesday they got word that a buyer, the union believed in, had been found.
"Our lives were like being on a roller coaster of emotions, and finally that roller coaster stopped," she said.
Brown flashed the Hugo Boss label in his suit jacket while speaking of the sale. He said he will be happy to do the same wearing a Hart Schaffner Marx suit.
"Hugo Boss wants to come out of this with a good name, and they have, " he said of the sale. "I am thrilled about the sale.
"My real frustration with Hugo Boss is that they didn't advertise 'Made in America.' In a year, anyone who buys a Hart Schaffner Marx suit will know that it will either have been made in Chicago or here in Cleveland."