First fire, now global pressure

[jarab]

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/13903377.htm


About 80 percent of the workers at Jackson County's largest business could be out of a job by year's end, officials with Mid-South Electronics announced yesterday.

After seemingly bouncing back from an alleged arson fire that destroyed the company's main plant early last year, the contract manufacturer of refrigerator ice dispensers is now bowing to global economic pressure and moving most of its remaining 540 jobs to Mexico.

Harold Weaver, chairman and CEO of parent company Mid-South Industries, said he hopes to find other contracts that could keep as many as 250 workers on the job, but he said employment could dip as low as 110. The plant had more than 700 workers before the fire on Jan. 15, 2005.
"It's not a happy day; I don't like doing this," Weaver said yesterday at a news conference.

The layoffs at Mid-South will probably have a strong ripple effect in the county of 13,595, since several of the company's suppliers also are located in the Jackson County Regional Industrial Park. The county ranks 119th out of Kentucky's 120 counties in per capita income.

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[Roland99]

1. NAFTA and CAFTA will only SHAFTYA