Raleigh (North Carolina) Diagnostic Lab Laying Off 140

This mass layoff story combines two recent unfortunate trends that I have noticed--jobs being shed in the health care industry and in the Triangle area of North Carolina. Here is the newsobserver.com with the details:

Millennium Laboratory, a diagnostic lab based in Raleigh, is laying off all of its 140 employees.

The company announced the cuts in a notice filed last week with the N.C. Department of Commerce.

In the notice, the company wrote that it is being sold to another laboratory company and that the layoffs would take effect on or near May 4.

Most of the jobs being eliminated are in Wake County, according to the notice.

Jobs include account executives, couriers, phlebotomists and medical technologists.

And so it goes.

Assholocracy Porn: "I Have Very Little Tolerance For People With Student Loan Debt"

Awhile back, I adopted the phrase "assholocracy" for use as a tag here at TDS, and since then I have already used it on an incredible 52 different posts. Back in the 1970s glory days of Larry Flynt and Hustler Magazine, he used to have a regular feature called "Asshole of the Month" (and yes, I only read that particular publication for the articles....really). Not having picked up an issue in more than 20 years, I don't know if Flynt is still running that always amusing feature, but if he is I would humbly suggest that for April 2012, he consider making it cretinous North Carolina Representative Virginia Foxx. Here is the Raw Story with the details:

If someone is looking for sympathy for their high student loans, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) would not be among those providing any support.

According to audio obtained by Think Progress, the congresswoman appeared on G. Gordon Libby show Friday afternoon, saying she “never borrowed a dime of money” during her time in college before lashing out at those burdened with heavy loans.

“I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there’s no reason for that,” Foxx said. “We live in an opportunity society and people are forgetting that.”

Despite her disgust for high student loans, Foxx is somehow content with high mortgage notes. Think Progress reported that Foxx owed two individual notes up to $250,000.

Here are a few fun facts that Representative Foxx might want to consider before ever again opening her big fat fucking yap about student loans. According to her Wikipedia page, old battle axe Foxx was born in 1943, which means she would have graduated college around 1965 or so. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average cost for one year of undergraduate tuition, room and board at a public university in 1965 was: $950. By 2007 (the last year for which statistics were available from the NCES), tuition, room and board had risen to a whopping $11,034. At private schools, tuition had risen from $1,907 to $28,384. What's even worse is that since 2007 many public universities have have imposed large tuition hikes on students as cash-strapped state governments have cut back funding.

So it doesn't take a whole lot of fucking imagination to understand how graduates are being burdened with such impossibly huge student loan debts and at a time when there are few good paying jobs with decent benefits waiting for them when they graduate. Unless you are addle-brained asshole North Carolina Representative Virginia Foxx that is.

Addendum: But wait, it gets worse. Right after I wrote this post, I came across another article in Salon about Virginia Foxx, who is not only an asshole, but a fucking hypocrite as well:

Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a bill with the impressive, everybody-can-get-behind-this title “Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act.” Sponsored by the ultra-conservative North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx, the bill ostensibly took aim at an issue close to small-government-loving hearts: intrusive federal regulation of for-profit colleges — fast growing, highly profitable outfits like DeVry University or the online-only University of Phoenix.

Like so many of the bills passed by the House since Republicans gained the majority in the 2010 midterm elections, the bill was designed to repeal specific actions taken by the Obama administration. In this case, the issue at hand was the Obama administration’s efforts to ensure greater “program integrity” in the for-profit educational sector. Specifically, a new federal definition of what constitutes a legitimate academic “credit hour” and a new requirement that all online providers of post-secondary education be accredited in each and every state in which they do business.

Foxx’s bill repealed both measures. (The Senate has yet to address the measure.) According to Foxx, the new federal regulations threatened “innovation” in the educational sector. As reported by InsideHigherEducation, Foxx is on record as declaring that for-profit colleges do a “a better job of being mindful about efficiency and effectiveness than their nonprofit peers.” By, for example, flexibly providing online education when and where low-income working Americans want it, the for-profit free market delivers the kind of quality higher education that Americans so desperately need. The government should just stay out of their business.

I stumbled upon this story while researching the student loan crisis and at first I was perplexed. I didn’t understand why Republicans were opposed to higher academic standards for the for-profit sector, and I didn’t get the connection to student loans. But it didn’t take much research to discover what was really going on: an example of blatant hypocrisy sufficient to outrage even the most jaded observer of American politics.

The for-profit educational sector is an industry almost entirely subsidized by the federal government. Around 70-80 percent of for-profit revenues are generated by federal student loans. At the same time, judging by sky-high dropout rates, the for-profit schools do a terrible job of educating students. The Obama administration’s efforts to define a credit hour and require state accreditation were motivated by a very understandable desire: to ensure that taxpayers are getting their money’s worth when federal cash pays for a student’s education. In contrast, Foxx’s legislation is designed to remove that taxpayer protection. So here’s a more accurate title for her bill: “The Protecting the Freedom of For-Profit Schools to Suck off the Government Teat Without Any Accountability Whatsoever Act.”

The for-profit educational sector has been growing extraordinarily rapidly for the past decade: 12 percent of all post-secondary students are now enrolled in for-profit schools, up from 3 percent 10 years ago. But the main beneficiaries of the growth appear to be the shareholders and executives of the largest publicly traded for-profit schools, not the students.

In 2008, for-profit schools registered a a graduation rate of 22 percent. (Public and private non-profits registered 55 percent and 65 percent respectively.)

54 percent of the students who enrolled in 2008-2009 in 14 publicly traded for-profit schools had withdrawn without a degree by 2010.

The biggest player in the for-profit sector, the University of Phoenix, graduated only 9 percent of its B.A. candidates within six years.

The pathetic performance of the for-profit sector in delivering actual degrees becomes all the more alarming when you realize that most of the students who are dropping out paid for their educations with student loans that have to be paid back: According to a report released in the summer of 2010 by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, “Emerging Risk?: An Overview of Growth, Spending, Student Debt and Unanswered Questions in For-Profit Higher Education,” in 2009, the five largest for-profit schools reported that government grants and loans accounted for 77.4 percent of their revenue.

Really, North Carolina, on this blog I have facetiously asked, what's the matter with a lot of different states, but you really have some 'splaining to do as to how you managed to elect someone as purely odious as Representative Virginia Foxx.


Bonus: "But you say that we're the assholes...because we bitched about the hassles...while you're sleeping in your castle"

Three More North Carolina Firms Closing

There have been quite a few mass layoff stories from North carolina as of late. Here is The Business Journal with the details:

LC Transportation Services, a Mount Airy-based trucking company that has been in business for nearly three decades, has shut its doors for good.

Saturday's closure of the trucking company — which employed 90 — comes as two other Mount Airy firms are shutting down operations.

General contractor John S. Clark, once one of the biggest commercial builders in the Triad, announced in a mid-March letter to customers that it was closing after failed negotiations for a management buyout. Harvest Time Bread Co., a national baker for the grocery and food service industries, is also closing its manufacturing plant in Mount Airy and cutting 57 local employees.

Phil Arrington, vice president of Mount Airy-based LC Transportation Services, said the company shut down due to a combination of issues, including rising fuel prices and costs for workers compensation and insurance. He also said a major customer cut their rates and contributed to the demise of the business, although he declined to name the business.

Arrington described the closing as a “death in the family,” adding that his employees were very disappointed.

“They didn’t work for us, they worked with us,” he said.

Hmmm...I wonder if that "major customer" was Walmart. If so, that wretched company is already fulfilling my prophecy of the other day about what passing on further price cuts will do to its suppliers.


Bonus: "Hell's on both ends of it...nowhere in between...this highway's mean"

JS Clark Company (North Carolina) Closing

The have been a lot of plant closing and layoff stories from the Tar Heel State as of late. Here is a local television station with the details:

A Mount Airy-based general contractor has announced it will close after efforts for a buyout were unsuccessful.

John S. Clark Company notified customers and vendors of the closure in a letter from its executive vice president on Thursday. The Winston-Salem Journal reported the closure will take place by the end of the year and affect about 100 employees.

The letter said the company will honor its current obligations but not start any new projects.

Pretty standard stuff, made a little worse by this:

The company has been in business for more than 50 years. It has built structures for many different fields, including industrial, commercial, health sciences, retail, educational and religious.

Yet another multi-generation business goes down the drain. It makes that logo above they apparently designed to celebrate their golden anniversary last year look even sadder.

Connexion Technologies (North Carolina) Lays Off 232

This mass layoff notice from the Triangle Business Journal sounds like a case of a company that expanded way too fast and then felt the ground crumble from beneath its feet:

Connexion Technologies, a company founded by former Cary Mayor Glen Lang, is laying off more than half of its 455 employees.

The Cary-based company filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice with the state on Monday that said Connexion was planning to cut 130 to 140 jobs in North Carolina. In an interview on Tuesday, Executive Vice President Matt Springer put the number at 106 in North Carolina and 126 in other states.

Springer said the cutback follows difficulty in raising capital at the 10-year-old company, which has not yet achieved profitability. The firm customizes and manages communications networks in residential areas nationwide. The layoffs come despite the fact that Connexion’s revenue grew to about $47.7 million in 2011, up from about $30 million the year before, he says.

“We can’t fully fund our business plan for the year,” Springer said. “We have to take very serious action. It’s a very sad day here.”

The layoffs are effective March 14.

Connexion was among the fastest-growing companies in the Triangle as recently as 2010. It ranked 18th on Triangle Business Journal’s Fast 50 list in 2010, when it grew to 348 employees in the Triangle. Its national presence nearly doubled that year, to 612 employees, according to a ranking of privately held companies by Inc. magazine last year.

So they kept expanding right into the teeth of the Great Recession even though they have never turned a profit. As I've said, I've never been to business school, but that seems like a sure fire recipe for failure to me.

RockTenn Closing Plant In Shelby (North Carolina), 150 To Lose Jobs

Here is a story of yet another small town factory closing. The Winston-Salem Journal has the details:

Packaging company RockTenn Co. has told state and local officials it will be closing its plant in Shelby, eliminating 150 jobs.

The plant at 662 Washburn Switch Road, which makes containers, is scheduled to close in late April, according to a notice to government officials that the company filed this week.

It is the second plant closing announcement for RockTenn in the past six weeks. It said on Feb. 29 it was closing a containerboard plant in the Canadian province of Quebec that the company idled in January. About 100 people worked at the plant.

RockTenn, which is based in Norcross, Ga., bought the mill in May as part of its purchase of Smurfit-Stone. The mill produced about 176,000 tons of product a year.

Sounds like these Bastards bought the plant without any intention of keeping it in operation. Of course, taking over the competition and shutting it down is a grand old American business tradition going all the way back to The Gilded Age. More than one hundred years ago, Republican President Teddy Roosevelt launched the federal government's war to put an end to such monopolization. Today, under Democratic President Barack Obama, we just bend over and take it.


Bonus: Can we change? It's too late

Commercial Vehicle Group Lays Off 100 In North Carolina

Globalization claims another 100 victims. Here is WCNC.com with the details:

About 100 full-time and temporary employees are being laid off from the Commercial Vehicle Group manufacturing facility in Statesville as the company shifts production to be closer to its clients.

The New Albany, Ohio-based company notified state and local officials last week of the impending layoffs at the 2227 Salisbury Highway plant.

Commercial Vehicle Group makes components like suspension seat systems and door panels for heavy-duty trucks and other commercial vehicles. The company and many of its customers operate using the "just-in-time" production strategy, meaning they keep little inventory and need new shipments quickly.

So as truck manufacturers shift production out of the country, Commercial Vehicle Group is as well to supply them.

"Essentially, we're following where our customers take us," said John Hyre, spokesman for the company.

Love how the Corporate Flack tries to push the blame off on other companies that are doing the same thing. I thought the whole point of globalization is that you could make your shit anywhere in the world and then ship it to where you need it. Is this perhaps a tacit admission they they are being affected by rising oil prices and transportation costs?


Bonus: "It's just like a ride...maybe some time...they'll make it a ride...all over the world"

Greensboro (North Carolina) Call Center To Close, Nearly 700 To Be Laid Off

When your town starts losing crappy jobs like those at a call center, you might have an unemployment problem. Here is the Greensboro News & Record with the details:

A call center will close on August 31 and lay off 685 employees beginning in May.

The NCO Customer Management, Inc., told Mayor Robbie Perkins on Friday that it is permanently closing the Greensboro center at 4336 Federal Drive. NCO specializes in outsourcing calls and other services for companies across the world.

According to a letter Perkins received, the office “is closing due to business needs, which are considerate of client-mandated business decisions and requirements.”

The layoffs will begin May 7, the letter said. The company notified employees Friday. Perkins called the layoffs “devastating."

This was just the latest such hit suffered by Greensboro:

In January 2011, American Express decided to close its call center and move 1,500 jobs from Greensboro.

According to Wikipedia, Greensboro's population is around 269,000, which means that these two closings alone directly affected nearly 1% of the people who live there, not counting family members. Grim figures, indeed.


Bonus: Sounds like the people of Greensboro need to take the advice of their fellow Carolinians and get themselves A New Life

Cliffs Club Luxury Golf Communities (Carolinas) Declares Bankruptcy

As I've said before, I'm not a golfer, but I recognize the importance the sport has in an area like the Carolinas which relies on the tourist dollars it brings in. So this story from Bloomberg cannot be a good sign:

Cliffs Club & Hospitality Group Inc., which owns several luxury golf communities in South Carolina and North Carolina, filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Travelers Rest, South Carolina-based company listed assets of less than $50,000 and debt from $100 million to $500 million in Chapter 11 documents filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

The eight communities are located between Asheville, North Carolina, and Greenville, South Carolina, according to the company website.

Holy crap! Assets of less than $50,000 and liabilities of over $100 million? Sounds like this move was LONG overdue.


Bonus: George's classic bit on what we should do with golf courses

Turkington USA is Shutting Down Its Industrial Oven Manufacturing Plant in Clayton, North Carolina

More bad economic news just hit the Tar Heel State. Here is the Triangle Business Journal with the details:

Turkington USA is shutting down its industrial oven manufacturing plant and U.S. headquarters in Clayton – a move that will affect 101 workers.

A temporary receiver has been appointed to either wind down or sell the business, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice and letter submitted by Turkington USA President Clive Tolson to the North Carolina Department of Commerce on Feb. 14.

U.K.-based Turkington had moved its U.S. operations from Goldsboro to Clayton in 2009 when it needed to expand its business, according to the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center.

Once again, we see a community that subsidized a private business interest to no avail:

The Rural Center had awarded a $324,000 building reuse grant to the Town of Clayton to go toward renovation of a former plastic components manufacturing facility that Turkington would use to expand its operations.

The new plant in Clayton opened in September 2009. The company employed 111 people at the time and had plans to create 27 additional jobs. Its clients included Pepperidge Farm, Sara Lee and Flowers Foods, according to the Rural Center.

However, all hopes for the company’s expansion have been dashed. Under the arrangement with the receiver, Turkington USA will begin shutting down the plant on Feb. 17, a process that will extend through March 2.

From expansion to collapse in just over two years. It sounds to me likel someone completely misread the real economic conditions out there.


Bonus: Sorry about that, North Carolina. I guess all we can do is play you a song

PNC Bank Buys Out RBC, Lays Off 600 in North Carolina

image: Tarrytown Mall in Rocky Mount, North Carolina

More games that banksters play are about to cost the Tar Heel State a large number of layoffs, particularly in the city of Rocky Mount. Here is WRAL.com with the details:

More than 600 RBC Bank employees in North Carolina will lose their jobs following the bank's takeover by PNC Financial Services Group, according to a notice filed Friday with the state Department of Commerce.

PNC said in the notice that 425 jobs in Rocky Mount and 196 in Raleigh would be eliminated once its $3.45 billion acquisition of Raleigh-based RBC is complete in March. The layoffs will begin March 16.

Pretty routine stuff, except that the article also goes on at length about the recent economic devastation wrought upon Rocky Mount:

The layoffs are the latest economic blow to Rocky Mount, which has the highest unemployment rate of any North Carolina metro area, at 12.7 percent in November.

Once dubbed the City on the Rise, many residents now refer to Rocky Mount as "the City on the Decline."

"I have a lot of friends who have lost their jobs," resident Tammy Turner said.

Some local leaders expressed concern that the situation could get worse before it gets better.

Sears recently announced it would close its Rocky Mount store by summer, and Old Navy will close as well. Torpedo Specialty Wire laid off 17 employees this week, almost one-third of its local workforce.

City Councilman Andre Knight said he has heard that the U.S. Postal Service plans to move a distribution operation from Rocky Mount to Raleigh.

"It's pretty devastating on our community," Knight said of the business closings.

Standing in front of a defunct textile mill, he points to former cotton and tobacco operations nearby. "It's like big dinosaurs that are left here – empty buildings," he said.

This is what a slow motion economic collapse looks like. Rocky Mount is now well into a downward spiral that, thanks to peak oil and the end of real economic growth, is not going stop. The only question is how quickly the descent is going to be.