A SELL-OUT OF JOBS WITHOUT A WHIMPER

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 5, 1993                   TAG: 9302050416
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
A SELL-OUT OF JOBS WITHOUT A WHIMPER
AS A GROUP of highly skilled mechanics that (for now) hold jobs at Gardner-Denver M&C, we'd like to inform the Roanoke Consortium for Industry, the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Committee and the people of the valley that we feel sold out by a politically-motivated "big brother" corporation. Cooper Industries brought in their hatchet crew three years ago. Their duty: doll the facility up, slash the benefits of the employees, completely rewrite the vacation policy (to the corporation's advantage, of course) and sell the whole shooting match to a misinformed company in Sherman, Texas.
It amazes us that these committees, consortiums and political riffraff in Roanoke let this go through without so much as a whimper since the announcement of "acquisition or merger" back in March.
Believe it or not, people, these groups have shot the valley in the foot by not working together to obtain and retain good high-paying jobs. Instead, they've tried to sell the valley two white-elephant projects and countless second-rate, low-paying service-industry jobs.
Can you, like us at Gardner-Denver, hear a "loud sucking sound going South"?\ DONALD COLE\ TOMMY HAMBLETT\ JUNE REEVES\ ROANOKE

Editor's note: This letter was signed by 26 other machine-shop employees.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB