Job losses/Companies Closing in North Carolina

http://www.wcnc.com/localbusiness/localbusiness/stories...

(2,500 jobs and $5 million in taxes to the city every year)

CONCORD, N.C. -- The parent company of cigarette-maker Philip Morris announced Tuesday it will close its Cabarrus County factory by 2010.

The 2.4-million square foot plant is the County’s third largest employer with about 2,500 workers.

Only Northeast Medical Center and the Cabarrus County Schools employ more people.

“This was a surprise,” said Concord City Manager Brian Hiatt, adding that Philip Morris had invested more than $100 million in the factory in the last three years.

“It’s almost impossible to replace an employer that large,” Hiatt said. “They just don’t come about any more.”

LANCASTER, S.C. -- “Worked there 38 years,” says Gayle Helms. Helms and her husband were a married team at Springs Global. While Gayle works in the credit department, her husband spent 31 years at the Grace plant in Lancaster.

“Everybody's been emotional but it hadn't just been today. It's been a while,” said Helms. She found out Wednesday morning her husband will lose his job, and the timing couldn't be worse. “My job's ending as of this week. They're sending it to Brazil,” explained Helms. Springs Global manufactures bedding and bathroom décor -- comforters, blankets, sheets, towels and pillows. The company is shutting down the Grace facilities in Lancaster and the Close plant in Fort Lawn -- putting about 750 people out of work.

Company spokesman Ted Matthews said Springs is facing rapid price deflation from imported products.

“Ultimately the decision was made for the sake of the business, that we're not going to be able to manufacture product and do it competitively in the United States,” Matthews said.

http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/wcnc-062707-jmn-springs_global.1c8dd7c6.html

the outsourcees become the outsourced:

http://www.charlotte.com/business/breaking_news/story/175924.html

Winston-Salem's Hanesbrands cutting 5,300 jobs
Ieva M. Augstums

Associated Press

Hanesbrands Inc. will cut 5,300 jobs, or 11 percent of its current work force, and close nine sewing and assembly operations as it moves production to lower-cost sites in Asia and Central America.

The underwear and apparel maker said today it will close plants affecting nearly 5,000 employees, mostly in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, though positions in Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico also will be eliminated.

Another 350 management and administration positions will be cut, mostly in the United States.

The Winston-Salem-based company said the closings, which will cost about $42 million, are a part of an ongoing restructuring effort to make its business leaner and more profitable.

tick tick tick...next 90 day period ends the week of Thanksgiving. Happy Holidays, ya'll!

GE just announced they are laying off 200 workers in Flat Rock.

Six hundred workers lost their jobs when the RSF Ecusta plant in Transylvania County closed its doors after the owner declared bankruptcy. The closure and the layoffs seemingly marked the end of a long, bitter labor dispute between the unionized workers and plant owner Nathu Puri.

But a new chapter in this saga was written Feb. 18, when a court-appointed auctioneer liquidated the assets of the plant as part of an effort to repay the plant's creditors. County officials, former Ecusta workers and officials of the union that represents them (the Paper, Allied-industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, a.k.a. PACE), had been clinging to the hope that someone would step forward at the auction and buy the plant in its entirety, reopen its doors, fire up its machinery -- and regain its foothold as one of Transylvania County's biggest employers.

http://www.mountainx.com/news/2003/0305ecustalabor.php

I think most of the workers in Transylvania Co have left to find jobs elsewhere.

"free trade" ain't free.