Columbia Lighting plans relocation

Columbia Lighting is shifting 78 office jobs from its Spokane Valley plant to a new headquarters complex in Spartanburg, S.C.

The changes are part a broad restructuring under way by Columbia’s corporate parent, Hubbell Inc., as it attempts to integrate companies it has merged with or purchased. The initiative, an $80 million corporate plan to boost production and cut costs, has led to layoffs, consolidations and factory closings throughout the company during the past couple years.

In Spokane, where Columbia Lighting has operated for 108 years and was once among the region’s largest employers, about 300 employees remain, said Steve Nail, vice president of human resources for Hubbell. That number will drop to 222 during the next seven months as the move to Spartanburg occurs.

Though some Spokane employees may relocate, most of the jobs are expected to be filled by new hires in South Carolina.

The company has made no secret of its desire to shift more work to factories in Mexico and other countries where labor is comparatively cheap. The lighting restructuring plan, started four years ago, is scheduled to wrap up this year.

Most workers at Columbia Lighting, which is located in the Spokane Business and Industrial Park, do assembling and machining jobs. They are paid around $13 an hour and have health insurance and retirement benefits.

The jobs being lost to South Carolina range from sales to customer service to management.

The company’s manufacturing workers, represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 73, have shared worries in the past that the company is slowly closing the plant by moving product lines to other facilities. The workers make lighting fixtures.

Hubbell, based in Connecticut, laid off between 35 and 50 people in Spokane last May. The decision was blamed on sluggish sales and a slowing construction market, plus the rising costs of raw materials.

Managers have said employment figures have fluctuated for years. Indeed, Columbia Lighting had more than 800 workers several years ago. Last spring the company had approximately 500.

The company was started in 1898 by Rudolph Doerr and Joseph Mitchell. In the 1920s the company was run by Eric A. Johnston and called the Brown-Johnston Co.

It was renamed Columbia Lighting in 1940 and is credited with lighting innovations.