Ormet Warns Of Possible 400 Layoffs

The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register ^ | Monday, August 04, 2003

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

As many as 400 workers at the Ormet Corp.'s Reduction Plant in Hannibal could be laid off within 60 days, according to company officials.

Ormet Primary Aluminum Corp. today announced that market conditions through the remainder of the year will determine whether it will be forced to curtail up to three of the six potlines at its Hannibal Reduction Plant. The curtailments may be necessary due to prolonged weak metal prices, volatility of alumina and energy prices, as well as other rising costs.

As a result and as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, Ormet sent notices to employees Friday advising them that curtailment of up to three potlines is possible after 60 days. The WARN notice gives the company the flexibility to curtail three potlines, if necessary.

However, company officials cautioned that changing market conditions could force Ormet to curtail up to two potlines before the 60-day notification period is over as such a move would note require the notification process of the WARN Act.

Ormet officials today said the number of workers to be laid off will depend upon the number, if any, of potlines that may be curtailed. The maximum number of layoffs for a three potline curtailment would be 400 employees, both hourly and salaried.

Ormet Chairman and CEO R. Emmett Boyle said the layoffs are the result of prolonged depressed metal prices, an anemic economy, rising health care costs, and the volatility of alumina and energy prices. Alumina is refined from bauxite and is necessary to make aluminum. In the past two year, alumina prices have more than doubled on the spot market. Ormet will be subject to inflated alumina costs beginning in January when its contractual agreement with a third-party provider ends.

  "The U.S. aluminum industry has been in a serious economic downturn for approximately three years," Boyle said. "The hurdles facing Ormet's reduction plant are many and great, and they are the same hurdles facing all U.S. primary aluminum facilities.

"In 1978, there were 34 aluminum reduction plants operating in the United States. Today, there are just 13, including the Ormet Hannibal Reduction Plant, and these are all not operating at full capacity." Boyle said.

Last week, Alcoa, the world's largest aluminum producer, issued WARN notices to temporarily curtail all production at its Intalco reduction plant in Ferndale, Wash.

When that plant is curtailed, the number of operating reduction plants in the U.S. will fall to 12.

  Boyle said Ormet officials are hoping market conditions improve and the company will not be forced to curtail any potlines.

"We sincerely hope that recent increases in metal prices continue and then hold at reasonable levels. Ormet will continue to evaluate our plans and make appropriate decisions given all the changing variables," he said.

  Boyle assured that the curtailment would not cause disruptions for Ormet customers. He said Ormet operations will continue to provide the majority of metal necessary to support the company's downstream operations, however, the company will supplement primary metal requirements with outside purchases as necessary. "We currently plan to continue operating billet and flat rolled product facilities at their current levels," he said.

[Lazamataz]

It's been awhile. You know what they say about memory. It is the...

....second thing to go.

[meadsjn]

So is your point that the US should abolish farm subsidies, or that the US should outlaw unions (such as those for police, firemen, and other government workers)?

Maybe the point should be that government should be downsized and privatized, and funded locally to only the amount the local communities will vote to fund.

[Dane]

Huh? Reply #19 is a historical perspective of the damage high tariffs can do.

[meadsjn]

I gathered as much, but one example does not a principle make.

Adam Smith described some circumstances where tariffs were justified and would benefit an economy. Some of those passages have already been posted several times.

[arete]

The true believers aren't allowing much room for dissenting opinions these days are they?

Richard W.

[Dane]

I gathered as much, but one example does not a principle make

Maybe not a principle, but a precedent.

And the corn laws were generally damaging to the 19th century UK.

[RnMomof7]

US Factory Orders Higher Than Expected (The Bush Recovery)

That means nothing . The products are made with third world labor.No jobs will be created here from that slight bump

[Lazamataz]

The true believers aren't allowing much room for dissenting opinions these days are they?

If there is any dissent on Free Trade, when you might prefer Fair Trade, you are immediately branded a Buchananite. I must toe the party line, or I was clearly a Florida Jew who voted for Buchanan in 2000.

Of course, I could aspire to be a Whiner or a member of the Axis of Eeyore.

But my favorite is to be called a doom-and-gloomer, precisely because I used to taunt YOU in PARTICULAR with that phrase.

Kinda a little ironic self-Schadaenfreud going on there.

[RnMomof7]

Does Trading With Poor Countries Hurt the U.S.? http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a392eb6bf2a18.htm

In a word...NO!

Note the date on that article. That was before reality set in

[KDD]

In 1886 Henry George said, “Free trade consists simply in letting people buy and sell as they want to buy and sell. Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are blockading squadrons, and their objective is the same—to prevent trade. The difference between the two is that blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading.” It's sad to see so many people on this forum and elsewhere taken in by fallacious arguments that were thoroughly refuted centuries ago. Restrictions on trade are restrictions on freedom. When the government says that you can't buy or sell a product to a foreigner at an agreed-on price, it's interfering with your freedom to do as you please as long as you're not hurting someone. (And the claim that you're hurting someone indirectly by not doing business with them doesn't count: If we start saying that you can't have your hair cut by Smith rather than Jones because this will hurt Jones, we abolish freedom altogether.)

Freedom lovers should support free trade just as much as they support freedom in all other areas, and for the same reasons. The real effect of accepting restrictions on trade is (surprise) that those with connections with the government (typically those who are already rich or powerful) get special favors (tariffs or quotas protecting them, or subsidies) while the rest of us get dumped on. Don't fall for the arguments of the special pleaders, the sophists, the con artists, who almost always turn out to be in the pay of those who stand to benefit from the trade restrictions they advocate, at the expense of everyone else. BD

[Lazamataz]

So you got an industrialist and an admittedly brilliant economist, and I've got two founding fathers and two presidents. In the application of the logical fallacy of the Appeal to Authority, I seem to be beating you.

[RnMomof7]

That is a dumb question

[verity]

...market conditions could force Ormet to curtail up to two potlines

Will this become a problem for you? :~)

[RnMomof7]

Tell Adam (who BTW bought shoes from American shoe makers, now an impossibility!)


* The government missed a whopping 440,000 jobs that were lost last year. Why should this year's figures be any more accurate?

* Last January the unemployment rate was "adjusted" downward by 0.2 percent for changes in surveying methods. Right now the closely watched rate should actually be 6.6 percent, not 6.4 percent. If the rate does drop - as some on Wall Street are hoping/predicting - so what?

* The government recently started seasonally adjusting its employment figures each and every month. Washington may as well let the numbers be picked by a Lotto machine.

* Back in the 1990s, the government changed the questions it asked in its household unemployment survey; more recently, it lowered the number of people it canvassed in chronically underemployed inner cities.

The result, not surprisingly: an unemployment rate that is lower than it was in the last recession more than 10 years ago.



* In a less widely watched section of its report, the government is reporting that the unemployment rate in June was 10.6 percent, when you include people who are too discouraged to look for jobs and/or not fully employed.

The figure would be worse if the government hadn't booted millions of people from the discouraged worker category into a no-man's-land where they aren't counted at all.

The two surveys the government conducts aren't even close in their picture of the job market.

The survey of households, from which the unemployment rate is calculated, reports that there are 138 million jobs in this country. The survey of employers counts 129 million.

Even when you adjust for things like one person having more than one job, the figures can't be reconciled to within a million jobs of each other.


file:///Users/teresari/Desktop/Trade/New%20York%20Post%20Online%20Edition%3A%20business.html

[KDD]

LOL

At least you haven't lost your sense of humor.

Just your mind.

[thtr]

Perhaps the fact that the US imports much of its aluminum from Russia instead of obtaining it locally may be of cause.

http://www.manufacturing.net/pur/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA118570

Nice free subsidy for Russia! - Must be because they are so supportive of the USA. Our politicians have no clue.

[RnMomof7]

Our politicians have no clue.

The sad thing is I think they know exactly what they are doing. No one could be this dumb

[Myrddin]

If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.

The problem is that the employment we enjoyed with some advantage has been handed on a silver platter to foreign countries. They will indeed make the commodity cheaper with the help of the high technology we invented. We have squandered our competitive advantage before finding an alternate means of employment where we possess an advantage. A similar mistake was made when Clinton handed over the ICBM guidance secrets to China for campaign contributions. China acquired for peanuts what took the the U.S. 30 years of research. A fool gives away his advantage over his competitors. Those who believe we will innovate our way out of this stupidity are themselves fools. The innovations will be handed over just as readily.

[KDD]

So Karl Marx dies and shows up at the gates of heaven to be met by Saint Peter.

"Name?" asks Peter.
"Marx, Karl Marx." replies the famous author.
"Hmm," says Peter to himself, "why do I know that name?"
"I am Marx," Marx said, beaming with pride, "founder of socialism and the driving force behind the communist ideal called Marxism."
"I see," Peter said. "I'll have to check with God."

So Peter rushes off to confer with God. God hears the name Marx and immediately a look of disgust infects His face. "Marx?" God says, "He's nothing but a trouble maker. Send him down to hell."

So Peter happily signs the appropriate forms and deports Karl Marx to Satan's firy hell.

Some time later, a free trade agreement is forged between Heaven and Hell. The deal is hailed by all to be a great economic leap forward that would revitalize both struggling economies. But soon after the treaty, God realizes that Heaven is no longer receiving any products from Hell. So he sends Saint Peter down to investigate.

"Well?" asks Peter of Satan, "What's the hold up? We have an agreement!"

Satan shrugs his shoulders, exasperated. "It's that Marx fellow," Satan replied. "Ever since he got down here, all we've had are strikes and labour demands. Productivity has dropped to zero!"

"So?" Peter asks, "What would you have us do?"

"Take him back. Take Marx back to Heaven, and I guarantee productivity will sky rocket!"

So Peter agreed, on God's behalf, to accept Karl Marx back to Heaven.

Some time later Satan realizes that Hell has not received any orders for product from Heaven. In fact, very little communication at all has leaked from Up Above. So, concerned for the economic welfare of Hell, he makes a trip to Heaven.

"Peter! Peter, are you there?" Satan demands.

"Yes, what is it?" Peter answers.

"What's the hold up? What about the flow of trade?"

"Oh I'm sorry," Peter said, "We have decided to adopt a Marxist isolationist stance. We are an intrinsic self-governed body that is now based on the needs of the prolitariate. It is our opinion that this free trade agreement only benefits the bourgeois."

"What?!" Satan was furious. "I demand to speak to God!"

Peter's eyebrow is raised in confusion. "Who?"

[Lazamataz]

We have decided to adopt a Marxist isolationist stance.

The premise behind your joke is flawed.

Marx favored Free Trade.