This company closing has been a long time in the making. Years before NAFTA came on the scene, which only hastened the closing.
Mirro failed to reinvest into it's production/facilities. The buildings are literal dumps. They are blights on the city of Manitowoc. My mom worked there. My sister and sister-in-law were ones recently shown the door. My Mother-in-law retired from Mirro 10 years ago after 30 years of service. Heck, I even cleaned offices there for awhile when back in college. It was a filthy, stinky place.
As the story tells, when Newell came in, they did nothing to improve the company and started firing plant supervisors. I say "good riddance" to Mirro. Now they can take all that blighted property and put some real business there. Manitowoc is a tourist town. The $13.49/hr jobs lost can be replaced.
And no, the processes utilized in these facilities were no where near sophisticated/automated. They were the same machines my mom worked on when she was pregnant with my younger sister 40 years ago. None of my relatives/inlaws that worked there even had a high school diploma. So in some way, it's a blessing that they are going back to school now, to get their diplomas and training in other areas.