Herstal, which bought USRAC in 1987, also owns the Browning brand of firearms.

"This is personal," said Mayor John DeStefano Jr. "This is about workers and their families. ‘The Gun that Won the West’ is about to be made in the East (Asia)."
The move to close the factory comes almost a year after the International Association of Machinists signed a three-year contract with USRAC in which they agreed to several concessions in an attempt to keep the company in New Haven. Many of those workers, meeting at the Italian American Independent Club in Hamden Tuesday, said they are disappointed and frustrated by the decision.

"We’ve given up a lot, everything, to keep this place going," said Mary O’Toole, an assembly worker with 18 years at the company. "You have generation upon generation working here, and to see it go under now just doesn’t seem right."

Many of the workers at the company have been there for more than a decade, and several said it will be difficult for them to find other manufacturing jobs in the area.

"There are a lot of people in there that are really going to be hurt," said Rodney Williams, a machinist at the plant for 19 years, as he left work at the end of his shift Tuesday.

Some of the workers were notified about the closing late last week, while others found out Tuesday.

USRAC Facility Director Paul DeMennato said the move will essentially result in the end of the Winchester-brand firearm. Winchester Avenue was named after Oliver Winchester, the firearm brand’s founder.

"The market has not been kind to us," DeMennato said, speaking about a 50 percent decrease in production at the facility because of a lack of demand.

However, Scott Grange, a spokesman for Browning/Winchester, a Herstal division based in Morgan, Utah, said the Winchester brand will continue.

"USRAC will continue to produce Winchester firearms," he said. "We already have Winchester guns coming in from Europe and Japan."

A press release from Browning/Winchester Tuesday said, "This action is a realignment of resources to make Winchester Firearms a stronger, more viable organization. Winchester Firearms plans to continue the great Winchester legacy and is very excited about the future."

Grange said it was strictly a financial decision. "After years of attempting to make the facility profitable, our owners have decided that’s just not going to happen," he said. "The bottom line was we were losing money on every gun we built."

More than 19,000 people worked at the Winchester plant during its heyday in World War II, but employment has dropped steadily since. John Wayne made the Winchester rifle a signature of his movies.

Since the plant opened in 1866, tens of millions of Winchester rifles have been produced, most between the late 1800s and the end of World War II.

DeStefano and officials from the International Association of Machinists, Local 609, as well as other union officials spoke with worried workers Tuesday at the Italian American Independent Club. Their first priority, they said, is to find a company willing to buy the factory in order to keep the brand and the jobs in New Haven.

"I want to at least today have some hope that the jobs can be saved," DeStefano said to a crowd of nearly 100 workers.

The city and state have been subsidizing USRAC for the past decade, offering funding through tax abatements and grants. Since 1993, the city has foregone $1.3 million in property taxes for USRAC, though the state has reimbursed the majority of it, resulting in a $773,132 loss.

DeStefano said recovering those losses is not the top priority. What is needed now, he said, is to attract a company that is willing to take on the Winchester brand of guns. DeMennato said the company has been speaking with other firearms manufacturers about a possible deal, but declined to provide any details.

Grange said that USRAC is licensed by former owner Olin Corp. in Missouri — which still owns rights to the Winchester brand — to continue producing Winchester firearms through 2007, and he noted that USRAC has been up for sale "for a lot of years. That’s not a new idea."

At a late afternoon press conference, state and local politicians said they will keep the focus on keeping the company going, trying to leverage the Winchester name and the skilled work force as assets.

A group of union members and community activists called The Citizens Ad Hoc Committee is pushing the city to use legal options, such as an injunction, to postpone the closing, based on the fact that the company has not lived up to employment-level agreements tied to the tax abatements.

"There’s a lot of leverage that can be used," said Craig Gauthier, committee president.

John Reynolds, president of Local 609, and others said they will fight to keep the brand and the jobs in New Haven, though many admitted the factory has been struggling for years.

"We did everything within our power to avoid this day, but it seems it was inevitable," Reynolds said.