We Spoke With Some of MakerBot's Laid-Off Brooklyn Factory Workers

Pictured: MakerBot's factory in Industry City. Photo by John V. Santore

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — The MakerBot workers taking a smoke break Wednesday outside the company's year-old Sunset Park manufacturing plant said they'd had better weeks.

The workers said they'd been informed Monday by MakerBot management that going forward, the company's 3D printers would no longer be manufactured in Brooklyn.

One employee, who asked not to be named, said the news had been framed as: "It's not us, it's them."

In other words, the employee said, MakerBot blamed its failure to make ends meet in Sunset Park not on the workforce, but on "the global market."

Local manufacturing will cease by the end of the year, company spokesman Johan Broer confirmed Wednesday.

MakerBot will instead partner with the Florida-based manufacturer Jabil, which will now build the company's printers in China.

Broer refused to provide the number of local jobs that would dry up as a result.

However, he called the total figure "significant."

MakerBot's spokesman stressed that the MakerBot employees currently working from the company's offices at the MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn — including product designers, marketers and engineers — won't lose their jobs.

Founded in 2009, MakerBot has struggled to stay solvent in recent years. It laid off about 20 percent of its staff in April 2015, costing an estimated 100 workers their jobs.

Even so, last summer, it opened a 170,000-square-foot factory within Sunset Park's Industry City. At the time, managers foresaw a long-term manufacturing presence in the borough.

That news was quickly followed, though, by another round of layoffs in October.

"After the [layoff], I just expected it," the MakerBot employee who wished to stay anonymous told Patch. "I think we all did."

"I knew it was going to happen," added another factory worker, who will also be losing his job. "I didn't know it would happen as soon as it did."

"I am deeply disappointed to learn that MakerBot has decided to relocate their operations," Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said in a statement issued Wednesday. "But the wheels of innovation continue to turn at the Navy Yard and Industry City, where manufacturing companies are defining the Brooklyn brand and are expected to create more and more jobs every year."

Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who represents Sunset Park, took a tougher stance.

"The news about MakerBot closing its manufacturing facility is bad news for our community," Menchaca said in a statement. "The question is whether Industry City is up to the task and ready to demonstrate their commitment to this District's manufacturing community. I hold MakerBot accountable for ensuring that displaced workers are responsibly and fairly released, and promptly linked to job search assistance."

By way of explanation, Broer, MakerBot's spokesman, said that "when we planned that [Industry City facility], that was during the height of 3D printing."

"A lot of people within the industry thought the consumer market would take off very quickly," he said. "And then in 2015, everybody realized this will take much longer to happen."

And regarding the new production arrangement, Broer said Jabil already runs large manufacturing facilities in China — which will allow MakerBot easily increase or decrease production based on demand.

"To make [production] changes takes a lot of time if you have your own factory," he said.

One factory employee who spoke to Patch doubted that narrative. Instead, he guessed that CEO Jonathan Jaglom, who previously headed Asia operations of MakerBot's parent company, Stratasys, had simply found a way to save money by lowering production costs.)

Asked about reports of labor abuses at Jabil's factories in China, Broer said the manufacturer had "addressed that in the past, and we will definitely make sure they will honor their workers' rights."

MakerBot has announced it will hold a job fair for its former factory workers in Industry City next week. It will also be working with a staffing agency and the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corp. to help workers find new jobs, the company's spokesman said, and will run workshops on resume writing and interview techniques.

The workers standing outside MakerBot's factory Wednesday said they appreciated that assistance.

As as far as severance pay goes, one worker said, "they're offering us more than most companies would."

Broer said salaries on the production floor in Industry City started at $10.75 per hour. One employee who spoke to Patch said he made a bit more than that — but when asked if his salary was high enough to pay the bills, he just laughed.

Editor's Note: This post has been edited for clarity.