Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 15, 1993 TAG: 9309150031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Long
The 575 manufacturing jobs that DuPont announced Monday will be lost are to be pared according to seniority. As the old saying goes: last hired, first fired. In addition, 100 professional and managerial jobs will be cut, based on individuals' qualifications.
But the job numbers alone won't show the devastation this downsizing will have in Martinsville and Henry County. The manufacturing jobs paid an average of $15 an hour, or $31,000 a year.
Since the nylon plant started spinning out the Delaware company's new material in 1942, DuPont's wages have admitted hundreds of area families into America's middle class.
"Ain't no doubt about it - it's the best job here," said Randy Cox, who works for Stone Container Corp. and was eating lunch Tuesday up the street from the plant. "There's nowhere else you can go around here and make that kind of money."
And people don't often leave the company's payroll. Rich Pattinson, employee relations manager at the factory, said the average employee is 48 years old with 24 years of service with DuPont.
Like many others at the plant, Lorene Martin started working for DuPont Nylon shortly after she graduated from high school. She's been there 31 years now, and said she doesn't recognize the place.
"It's a different company now," she said. "We got different management now - they're not treating people like the old DuPont family did."
But the management says it's just trying to keep the company in business. The world's makers of nylon are overbuilt, and DuPont says it needs to reduce production at older factories - including Martinsville.
The irony is that Martinsville DuPont workers helped the country win a global military war - World War II - but they are falling victim to a global economic war.
Windowpanes on the upper level of a section of the Martinsville factory still are painted green, a security measure taken during World War II to obscure nylon being made for parachutes.
These days, the nylon is used in pantyhose, swimsuits, lingerie and Stainmaster carpet.
Though known as DuPont's Martinsville nylon plant, the factory complex covers 500 acres just across the city line in Henry County. It is a community within itself. The Martinsville DuPont Credit Union occupies a corner of U.S. 58 and Virginia 721, also known as DuPont Road.
Along DuPont Road is a DuPont wildlife habitat area. As the road nears the factory, an "End State Maintenance" sign appears, but the pavement gets smoother.
In November, when the first workers to be laid off drive out DuPont Road for the last time, it won't take long for the community to feel the impact, local officials say.
"I don't get many $15-an-hour jobs in here," said John Curran, job services manager with the Virginia Employment Commission in Martinsville. Curran was to meet with DuPont executives to get an idea of the scheduled layoffs.
Most DuPont employees come from Martinsville and Henry County, but Curran said the local impact will be buffered somewhat because others come from as far away as Danville and Greensboro, N.C.
But the potential impact cannot be underestimated. In Martinsville, for example, the unemployment rate of 7.1 percent equals 682 people out of work - about the number who will lose jobs at DuPont. In Henry County, the unemployment rate is 6 percent.
In terms of wages, however, the average for manufacturing jobs - from plant manager to custodian - in Henry County-Martinsville is $440 a week. DuPont pays an average of $600.
Derek Stone, 23, knows about the area's job prospects. He returned in January from serving in the Army in Germany. It took him three months to find a full-time job.
"It's like pulling teeth to find a job," Stone said. "Seven hundred more people pounding the street to find a job, it's going to make it a lot worse.
"They won't find another job that will match up to it - not here," Stone added. "Their standard of living is going to take a tremendous cut."
The company says it is trying to decrease the number of people it needs to lay off by offering retirement-incentive packages. A separation package will offer one month's pay for every two years of service - up to a maximum of a full year's pay.
An early-retirement offer, for example, will allow a person 58 years old, with 27 years of service, to draw a full pension. For each year younger than 58, that person's pension would be reduced by 5 percent. For example, a 52-year-old would be eligible to receive 70 percent of his pension.
Several workers said the retirement incentive isn't good enough - at least it isn't as lucrative as the one last year that lured 300 people into retirement.
DuPont's Pattinson said each worker who takes the incentive offer will save the job of a younger worker who may not be eligible.
R.J. Frye, a 28-year DuPont employee and chairman of the Henry County supervisors, said the incentive offer will just put a lot of people out of work, leaving them little money to spend in the community.
"Yesterday's announcement was: The people who leave are going to leave with empty pockets," Frye said.
by CNB