Job Cuts Have Familiar Ring

BY SARA PITZER
SALISBURY POST

MOORESVILLE - Twice in the same month major textile mills announce the closing of local plants - first Cone's Salisbury plant, eliminating 625 jobs, and then Burlington, preparing to cut 2,900 jobs by closing seven mills in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

Burlington employs 640 at its Mooresville plant and 135 in Statesville.

Burlington officials held a press briefing Tuesday at the Mooresville Hampton Inn to announce and defend closing the plants. It was a somber meeting. Company officials wore black suits. The company's public relations people wore black. The mayor wore black.

Plant manager Tom Robinson, more casual in a blue shirt with no jacket, talked to reporters and television cameras in a voice that sounded as though he either had cried or was about to.

He said each employee would have an individual discussion with someone in the company about future job possibilities and because of the current job market, "prospects for employees are good."

Robinson said he had moved seven times for Burlington and no community had embraced him as Mooresville had. The plant, which makes denim, has been in Mooresville for more than 100 years, he said, operating at its current site since 1914.

The plant has performed impressively, he said, improving production and cost effectiveness - but not enough to remain competitive.

Vice President Neil Yeargen said the Asian economic crisis and the competition from goods imported from Asia forced the closing. Burlington waited almost a year, he said, hoping the Asian situation was temporary, before deciding to restructure the company and close some older plants producing denim or knits.

"We don't think this is temporary," he said.

He blamed unfair competition from places where companies use child labor and do not pay to meet environmental standards.

Yeager said Americans are good manufacturers. "We have nothing to be ashamed of and plenty to be proud of. It's a reflection of the changing world we live in."

As the briefing continued, events at Burlington sounded remarkably the same as those surrounding Cone's decision to close the Salisbury plant. Cone announced that decision the first week in January.

Like Burlington, Cone pointed to Asian imports.

Cone promised to help employees find other jobs and to hold job fairs on site. Burlington called them "career fairs."

Both companies said they are optimistic about their employees finding other jobs.

Both have new, modern facilities in Mexico.

Second shift employees leaving the Mooresville plant and third shift workers going in, responded to news of the plant's closing much as workers at Cone Mills in Salisbury had earlier.

They were shocked, the Burlington workers said, but rumors had been flying for years. In a sense, they weren't surprised. Like the Cone employees in Salisbury, they blamed it on Mexico.

The Burlington mill in Mooresville, like Cone in Salisbury, has been an integral part of the community where whole families often worked. The mayor has a son working there; the town manager's daughter does too.

In Mooresville, Carlyn Medley works first shift; her husband, Bryan, works second. They live in the trailer park right across the street. She wasn't surprised to find the parking lot at the plant filled with television mobile units, antennae raised like space probes, because her husband had already called her.

Carlyn was holding her 3-year-old daughter's hand. Young Angelica was dressed up in a green jumper, white tights and black Mary-Jane style shoes. She hid her blond head against her mother's leg.

Her mother was not shy. "I'm p-----," she said. "I'm really, really p-----. When they started building the plant in Mexico, we said it would take away our jobs. But 'no, no, no, that's not it,' they told us. So they open in Mexico in April. We close in July."

Bryan Medley had worked in a China Grove plant until they closed out his department there. Then he moved to the job in Mooresville. "We'll get together tonight to figure out what we're going to do," she said. Her worry isn't finding a job because people have always said she learns fast, but she doesn't know yet what they'll do in the meantime.

About then reporters with microphones found her and then television cameramen squatted low to zoom in on Angelica as she and her mother walked off to meet Daddy.

The cameras didn't find Buddy Williams. A co-worker called across the parking lot, "Hey, Buddy, they didn't take your picture. You must not be anybody."

Buddy grinned. He's somebody. He worked in the weave room for 25 years. When that went out, he moved into maintenance and has built up 26 1/2 years seniority with Burlington. He's not so much mad as sad. This is sure going to change his life and his retirement.

"I wanted it for my wife," he said. "We like to travel, and I was planning for us to just set back to show her how much I love her." He doesn't think it will work that way now. She may have to be the major earner for a while because Williams isn't about to settle for just anything. "I'm going to take my time and get something better than flipping burgers," he said.

Williams will get six weeks service pay and four weeks vacation coming. And maybe he'll just lie around his swimming pool for a month or so to take stock. The situation is bad, he says, real bad. He blames it on Mexico.

Earlier, in the briefing, Yeargin said when Burlington went to Mexico 2 1/2 years ago, the move was planned as part of the company's expansion. But the shifting market forced the company to cut back and use only its newest facilities instead. The company will still invest $300 million in United States plants, he said.

Yeargin told reporters it is cheaper to build a new plant outside the country. He said the issue was more plant materials than wages, with about 75 percent of company cost being raw materials. "But worker wages still are an issue," he said. "We all know that. We're all in the same boat."

Back in the parking lot at the mill, an unidentified Burlington worker said, "Life is gonna have to go on. Any job you get is not guaranteed."