JOLIET – Caterpillar supplier Bergstrom Inc. plans to begin layoffs Friday at its Joliet plant, which will be shut down, according to the company's report to the state.

Eighty workers will be laid off, according to Bergstrom's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN).

The WARN notice was filed more than a month before Caterpillar Inc. announced it had decided to lay off 230 workers at its Joliet plant as it moves two production lines to Mexico.

The Joliet Bergstrom facility is a contract plant "dedicated to assembling cabs for Caterpillar," according to the company website.

Bergstrom officials in Joliet and at the corporate office in Rockford could not be immediately reached for comment.

According to Bergstrom's WARN notice, the Joliet plant is being closed because of a relocation. The ending layoff date is July 31.

The Bergstrom plant opened in Joliet in 1998. At the time, the plant's arrival met with concern by the Machinists union that represents Caterpillar workers in Joliet because production was being outsourced to Bergstrom, a non-union operation.

State Rep. Larry Walsh Jr., D-Elwood, also a former worker at the Caterpillar plant in Joliet and now secretary-treasurer for District 8 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers, said he remembers when the cab work was moved to Bergstrom.

"When I first started out there, that's one of the first things I did was putting together cabs," Walsh said. "We got it fine-tuned so they fit like a glove. The next thing you know, they're being shipped out and going to Bergstrom."

Caterpillar announced on Jan. 15 it was considering a relocation of the two Caterpillar production lines to Mexico, but would not make a final decision until March. The Bergstrom WARN notice was filed Feb. 17.

Caterpillar announced on March 20 that it had decided to relocate the Joliet production lines.