Posted on 08/13/2005 8:34:35 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
It's like being an inmate on death row. You just want it to be over with already.
That's how one worker at Pfaltzgraff's Thomasville plant likened the reaction of the manufacturing facility's roughly 250 workers after owner Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff Co. told them it would close the factory by Oct. 28 if no buyer emerges.
No one was surprised.
The company gave workers their 60-day notices during two 15-minute meetings Friday afternoon.
Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff also filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, known as a WARN letter, with the state Department of Labor and Industry to let it know they would be laying off workers. The agency has yet to receive the WARN notice, spokesman Christopher Manlove said.
Despite the Oct. 28 deadline, the company is still trying to sell the plant as a pottery-making facility, said John L. Finlayson, Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff finance and administration vice president and chief financial officer.
Representatives of at least two pottery companies have toured the plant, which is being sold in as-is condition with its hundreds of machines, he said.
The company chose the October date — technically set for between Oct. 14 and Oct. 28 — because that's when the plant will complete an order for Westbury, N.Y.-based Lifetime Brands. Lifetime Brands bought Pfaltzgraff's intellectual property and retail stores last month.
Lifetime Brands did not buy the plant, it said, because the company is not a manufacturer.
"There really is no more product that will be needed after that date," Finlayson said. "When Lifetime bought a portion of the Pfaltzgraff business, they placed an order that would tide them over until they could fully source their product, and that order should be completed around mid-October."
Pfaltzgraff is the oldest continuously operating pottery maker in the country, but Lifetime Brands officials said they will have the dinnerware manufactured overseas because it is too expensive to have it made in Thomasville.
"The cost was just too high for us," said Lifetime Brands Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Siegel. "They way I look at it — and I hope it's not a heartless way of looking at it — if (Pfaltzgraff) would have continued in the direction they were going and sourcing from the (Thomasville) plant and not being competitive with the rest of the world, all of them would have lost their jobs."
Lifetime Brands inherited about 850 Pfaltzgraff employees nationwide. The New York company hired about 73 percent of those people and kept about 75 percent of Pfaltzgraff's 415 York-area employees, Siegel said.
Lifetime Brands' Pfaltzgraff operations includes a corporate office in downtown York, as well as a retail store and distribution centers around York County.
"There's no question that the people in the factory in York made a terrific product, but there are literally thousands of dinnerware factories in the world capable of making a terrific product," he added. "Hopefully as we grow in York — and we intend to grow in York — we can hire more people that have lost their jobs."
Workers were not surprised by the announcement of the closing, which they had been expecting since Lifetime Brands said in mid-June it was not buying the plant.
Michael E. Smeltzer, executive director of the Manufacturers' Association of South Central Pennsylvania, wasn't surprised either.
"We were aware that the company was going to issue their WARN notice today. We've been working with the company pretty seriously the last couple of weeks to begin to catalogue the workers, their skill sets, what they have done in their years at Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff," he said.
If the company is not successful in finding a buyer for the plant, the manufacturers association would help workers find jobs at area employers with the help of the South Central Workforce Investment Board in Harrisburg and the state's CareerLink program, Smeltzer said.
"I think the prospects quite frankly are very good," he said. "I have great confidence that they are going to find other work."
Finlayson said Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff is trying to get workers enrolled into a work-training program and help them find new jobs.
"I want to make sure the community knows that this company, Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff, is doing everything possible to make this transition as helpful to get the workers into another jobs, into another career where they can begin to bet their life back in order," Smeltzer added. "I can't say enough about what they're doing out there."
Reach Andréa Maria Cecil at 771-2001 or acecil@ydr.com.
UPDATE
Last time: Two weeks after buying The Pfaltzgraff Co.'s intellectual property and retail stores for $34 million, Lifetime Brands officials announced that Pfaltzgraff products will no longer be made in the United States. The Thomasville plant was not part of the sale to Lifetime Brands, so Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff Co. retained ownership of the building.
The latest: About 250 workers were given their 60-day notices Friday afternoon. The plant is scheduled to close between Oct. 14 and Oct. 28.
What's next? Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff Co., which still owns the building, continues its search for a buyer.
This is really sad. I love their products, and you can't convince me that Chinese Pfalzgraff will be the same quality as US made.
> ... and you can't convince me that Chinese Pfalzgraff
> will be the same quality as US made.
Won't necessarily be China. Japan is still a big player
in the dinnerware market, and has made china for Lenox
and Tiffany, for example.
If we actually had a competent press, they might have
explored why this is happening, and what the US needs to
do to halt this trend and improve our competitive posture.
Agree, bummer
Now instead of changing the topic to you, just posting a company that has hired 250 people would be more productive.
EXACTLY.
just posting a company that has hired 250 people would be more productive.Is anyone stopping you?
Quote: "I have great confidence that they are going to find other work."
What a stupid a** remark. Of course they will get another job-they have to to eat. Mcdee's and Wal mart are hiring everywhere.
I understand what you are saying, but I really believe the guy wa referring to finding jobs similar to the ones they currently have.
Gillette Wyoming is begging for entry level workers in good paying jobs. Mining, coal bed methane etc. These are damn good paying jobs. They advertised in the paper during Sturgis SD MC rally.
And Japan's Noritake (http://www.noritake.co.jp/eng/) is not only an established maker of fine china, but has also expanded in high technology, and is now also expanding into nanotechnology.
Can't find any companies hiring 250. I'm sure all the posters of job growth figures must be able to put a name on those figures. A lot in your area, right?
Are you willing to pay twice as much for dinneware produced in the USA? In the end, it all comes down to $$$. Will I spend $500 for a set of dinneware made in America when I can get a different set of equal quality for $200?
Actually, I just bought a fine set of Mikasa formals. I don't mind buying from a foreign country--as long as it's a FREE country, and our ally, not a declared enemy, a communist dictatorship like China.
Very sad.
NY is no place to do business today. I doubt this reality will be apparent to the electorate however.
They will end up like Massachusetts times a thousand if the rats are allowed to finish running the state into the ground.
Textile maker announces 350 layoffs
August 12, 2005
A textile maker in the Pee Dee will layoff about 350 workers because cheap imports from China have hurt business, company officials said.
Greenville-based Delta Mills said it would close a Wallace plant in Marlboro County and the Pamplico plant in Florence County during the next few months, Pamplico plant general manager Billy Prosser said Thursday.
"The decision to exit the synthetics business and close these two facilities was a painful and difficult decision," Delta Mills President W.F. Garret said. "However, due to the impact of foreign imports, our capacity utilization for this part of our business continues to be at or below 60 percent and sales prices continue to decline."
Both plants have strong ties to the rural communities.
About 80 percent of the Pamplico plant's 203 employees have been with the company for more than 20 years, Prosser said.
"I've been here for 35 years," Prosser said. "This is the first time in my life that I'll be looking for a job."
Jerry Tucker, human resources manager at the Wallace plant that employees 146, said about half of those have been with the company for 25 years or more.
The company is working with state agencies to help laid off workers find work, but it will be difficult, Tucker said. Delta Mills was the largest employer in Pamplico, a town with a population of about 1,100.
South Carolina lost 30,700 jobs from 2000 to 2004. The state lost 67,800 manufacturing jobs paying $38,400 in current dollars, but gained 37,100 jobs in services and construction paying $30,300, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But job growth this year has been scant. Marlboro County expects to gain 420 jobs within two years, said Butch Mills, the county's economic development director. The county had the state's second highest unemployment rate in June.
At least one local school district is concerned, too.
Steve Quick, superintendent of Florence School District 2, said Delta Mills has always been one of the largest tax contributors.
"When I came to Pamplico, half of our operational expenses came from Delta Mills. Last year it was down to 10 percent," he said. "But we've seen this coming, and we've made up for the lost money in other ways."
Quick said there also will be other impacts.
"It's certainly tragic for the families," he said. "We'll see an increase in the number of students on reduced or free lunches, and we'll see a number of students leave the district as their parents find work in other areas."
I know many ladies who collect what appears to be perfectly functional dinnerware for the purpose of display. I don't think price comes all that much into play in such cases.
We had a thread on the Lenox closure back in October, 2001:
Lenox layoffs to begin 2 weeks before Christmas
Coincidently, there was an update to this story just this past week:
Lenox furnace scrapped
By C.M. Mortimer
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, August 3, 2005Another chapter in Western Pennsylvania's glassmaking history will disappear soon, as the furnace once used to make crystal for the White House is being dismantled and will be sold for scrap.
After trying for more than three years to lure a glassmaker into the shuttered Lenox glass manufacturing plant in Mt. Pleasant, Westmoreland County economic development officials say they expect to advertise bids later this month for the renovation of about 53,000 square feet of the former glassmaking plant, in hopes of enticing a retail business.
"It's (the furnace) going to be sold for scrap, there's no use for it," said Larry J. Larese, executive director of the Westmoreland County Economic Development Corp. He said workers are currently breaking up the furnace, and plan to backfill a pit about eight feet below floor level.
"We were trying to get a glassmaker in there. ... But glass is struggling everywhere in the United States," Larese said.
The news follows the demise of several glass operations in the region.
Anchor Glass Container Corp. abruptly closed its glass bottling plant in South Connellsville in November, putting about 300 people out of work. In late November, 109-year-old Glenshaw Glass Co. closed its doors in Shaler, Allegheny County, putting another 300 out of work. In December, Houze Glass Co. in Point Marion, Fayette County, closed its doors, putting 57 people out of work.
> Are you willing to pay twice as much for dinneware produced in the USA?
Did. The majority of our formal china is Lenox, almost all
of it US made. The rest is Tiffany (outsourced to Japan,
probably Noritake).
Lenox tip: you can save a bundle if you live near a
factory outlet store. What is sold, at a discount, as
"seconds" often is actually re-marked 1st quality. And
even the actual seconds often have irrelevant defects.
has anyone noticed the wonderful business model created by Basset furniture? they opened stores called Basset Direct, they take orders and fill them within 2 months. Their plants are humming and the product is great. Do you think others might try this? Companies that quit don't want to be in business. They sold their name and closed their doors. Watch for similar actions by GM.
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