AAR Plant In Cullman (Alabama) Closing, 213 Jobs Lost

The reason for this mass layoff story is that the company in question got stabbed in the back by the U.S. Army, of all entities. Here is a local Alabama television station with the details:

Major layoffs have been announced at a plant in Cullman. The Illinois-based company AAR Corp. will close their Cullman plant at the end of June, eliminating 213 jobs, according to company spokesperson Chris Mason.

The layoffs are the result of the U.S. Army's decision to switch to a Canadian manufacturer. AAR Corp. Mobility Systems, an aerospace and defense contractor company, made a transportation device called a MK 1077 flat rack for the U.S. Army.

A skeleton crew will remain at the plant in hopes that the company will land another contract. The company says the laid-off employees will be given severance pay and help with creating resumes.

There used to be a quaint little law on the books called the Buy America Act that applied to federal government procurements. I guess somewhere along the way that law must have been repealed. In any event, it would be nice if some Congressman or Senator got their head out their ass and took a break from demagoguing over birth control and take a few minutes to send a letter asking the Army why it feel it is appropriate to give this contract to a foreign company and cost a bunch of American workers their jobs.


Bonus: Ironically, Neil Young, who was the inspiration for this song, is from Canada

United Space Alliance (Florida) Lays Off 10% Of Work Force

It is probably not a very good time to be the nation's "leading space shuttle contractor." Here is Florida Today with the story:

United Space Alliance, NASA’s lead space shuttle contractor, today shaves its work force by 10 percent with its latest round of layoffs, which include 181 employees based at Kennedy Space Center.

In all, 269 employees are leaving company offices in Florida, Texas and Alabama, the majority of them (186) through voluntary layoffs officially called self-nominations.

More than half the departing employees were the last to receive a “critical skills” bonus that was offered as an incentive to help retain those skills through flyout of the shuttle program, which completed its last mission last July. All laid off employees receive a severance package.

After today’s cuts, Houston-based USA expects to have 2,589 employees, including 1,323 at KSC.

Another round of reductions is planned in the fall.

Given that the space shuttle will never fly again, it is kind of baffling that this company is even still in business.


Bonus: Major Tom isn't coming home because he never got off the ground

Sara Lee Plant in Alabama Closes, 128 Laid Off

First it was Twinkees, now it is Sara Lee. Here is the story from the Dothan Eagle:

A manufacturing plant that employs 128 people is closing in Dothan.

The Sara Lee/Colonial Baking Company bakery on Bell Street at Tate Drive will cease operations by May 21, Bimbo Bakeries USA announced on Thursday.

Sara Lee Corp. sold its North American bakery business to Grupo Bimbo last November for $709 million. The bakery in Dothan produces bread and buns and will shift production to other sites in Bimbo’s manufacturing network.

And there was the usual Corporate FlackSpeak:

“This was a difficult decision because of the highly engaged team of associates and the great community tradition at the Dothan bakery,” said Kevin Williams, regional vice president of operations for Bimbo’s Southeast region. “However, after careful analysis and consideration, we found it necessary to address the aging facility that made it difficult to compete in the marketplace.”

“Our customers and consumers in Dothan and throughout the state are very important to us,” said Tony Gavin, regional vice president of sales for Bimbo’s Southeast region. “Recognizing that Alabama is a valuable marketplace, we will continue to operate 183 distribution routes across the state. In fact, 38 of these routes were added within the last two years as an investment in this market.”

Because there is no better "investment in a market" than laying off a bunch of your customers.


Bonus: I challenge you to watch this and not have the jingle get stuck in your head

Garcy Plant in Piedmont, Alabama to Close, 115 Jobs Lost

image: Piedmont, Alabama's hometown is likely about to become a little bit deader.

President Hopey-Changey's State of the Union speech last night not withstanding, the steady loss of American manufacturing jobs and the resulting devastation to blue collar communities everywhere continues. Here is the Anniston Star with yet another tale of woe:

Workers at Garcy Corporation in Piedmont were told Friday that the manufacturing plant would close by June.

The following Monday, more than a dozen Garcy workers met with local leaders to discuss what can be done to save the 115 or so jobs that will be lost beginning with the first layoffs, scheduled for March.

Garcy, owned by parent company Legget & Platt, manufactures store fixtures for retailers such as Aeropostale and Old Navy. News of the closing hit workers hard at the 35-year-old facility.

Charles Thacker has worked at Garcy for 14 years. His fiancée works there as well. He said the prospect of losing two jobs in the same household is hard to swallow. When asked what his plans are, he had no easy answer.

“I’m fixing to turn 47 so I don’t know. I have no clue. There’s no jobs anywhere,” Thacker said of the difficulty in finding work in the current economic climate. “We were fixing to get married, and we might have to postpone that. We don't know yet.”

Legget & Platt isn’t talking much about the closing, but in a press release last week the company said: “the decision to close the Piedmont facility is in no way related to the abilities or productivity of the employees at the local facility.”

The closing, the press release went on to say, is the result of a consolidation of similar operations within the company.

In other words, business is bad and we don't expect it to bounce back anytime soon, so we're cutting our losses.

Sometimes these small town newspapers do a better job when reporting these stories than their big city counterparts. In this instance, the article spells out the local factory closing trend:

So many closings in one small town

The Standard Coosa-Thatcher Cotton Mill now stands in the middle of town as a reminder of the almost 100 years the mill provided jobs for Piedmont. The mill closed in 2001.

Seven years later, Springs Industries – a major supplier of bedding to large retailers – closed its Piedmont plants, leaving 325 employees out of work. Springs moved their production to the Reynosa, Mexico.

For the record, according to Wikipedia, Piedmont's population is just a little over 5,000.


Bonus: Drive by Truckers pay tribute to The Three Great Alabama Icons

Alabama State Budget Cuts Delay Forensic Tests for Criminal Investigations

I've posted several previous stories about how state and local government budget cuts are causing cutbacks to law enforcement, meaning fewer cops on the streets in some localities. But here is a new angle on that theme that I had not seen previously. Thanks to teevee shows like CSI, most people are familiar with the forensic science aspect of modern law enforcement and how it it used to successfully prosecute criminals who might have avoided conviction in an earlier era. You couldn't do a DNA match, for example, before DNA tests were even possible.

What people don't stop to consider, however, is that such tests are not cheap to properly perform, and that if there is no longer sufficient funding for them they will cease to be a tool in policeman's kit. Here is the Montgomery Advertiser with a story about just such a thing starting to happen down in Alabama:

The funding crisis in Alaba­ma's General Fund budget is be­ing felt in particular by law en­forcement agencies and district attorney's offices with delays in critical lab work results needed to investigate crimes and bring cases to trial.

This includes tests to de­termine if something found in a car or on a suspect is an illegal substance like cocaine or marijua­na or contains legal ingredients like talcum powder or pencil shavings. Also being delayed are tests to determine how a person died and those that show if ar­rested drivers were under the in­fluence of alcohol or drugs.

State Forensic Sciences Direc­tor Michael Sparks said his agen­cy's funding has been cut 33 per­cent in the past three years and there are 27 fewer employees than in 2009.

He said the funding shortfall is causing backlogs, particularly in drug tests and on toxicology tests that determine cause of death.

The agency has long suffered from budget shortfalls, but Sparks said they had $14 million to spend three years ago and the agency had eliminated most back­logs. Then the recession hit and in the past three years, Sparks has watched the agency's budget drop almost $5 million a year. Labs have been closed and some key services have been dropped, such as providing transporta­tion to ship bodies to labora­tories.

"We have to investigate everything that is brought to us," Sparks said. "If someone is found dead, they want to know what happened."

Blount County District At­torney Pamela Casey said quick results on a toxicology test can mean whether a case is successfully prose­cuted.

"I can't prosecute cases until I have a toxicology re­port in my hands," Casey said.

She said the delays are causing grand jury proceed­ings to be delayed, slowing down how long it takes for indictments to be brought against suspects.

Casey said she had a drawer in her office in Oneonta that contains about 700 cases that need to go be­fore a grand jury.

She said in many of those cases the laboratory work has not been completed.

She said the state's district attorneys have already been told more budget cuts are coming in the session of the Legislature that begins in February.

Of course, law enforcement was already dealing with the so-called "CSI Effect," as explained by Wikipedia:

The CSI effect, also known as the CSI syndrome and the CSI infection, is any of several ways in which the exaggerated portrayal of forensic science on crime television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation influences public perception. The term most often refers to the belief that jurors have come to demand more forensic evidence in criminal trials, thereby raising the effective standard of proof for prosecutors. While this belief is widely held among American legal professionals, some studies have suggested that crime shows are unlikely to cause such an effect, although frequent CSI viewers may place a lower value on circumstantial evidence. As technology improves and becomes more prevalent throughout society, people may also develop higher expectations for the capabilities of forensic technology.

There are several other manifestations of the CSI effect. Greater public awareness of forensic science has also increased the demand for forensic evidence in police investigations, boosting workloads for crime laboratories.

Increased demand has run smack dab into budgetary realities. So in other words, you could say that we are now reaching the point of Peak Criminal Forensics.