Factory trims staff Easthampton's largest employer cites tight economy

BY MATT PILON

05/14/2008- Daily Hampshire Gazette

EASTHAMPTON - Berry Tubed Products, the city's largest employer, laid off 13 workers last month, according to one of the workers who lost her job.

 

Susan Bachand, 59, of

Adams Street

, an employee at the company for 41 years, learned in early April that she would be losing her job at the

O'Neill Street

plant.

 

She most recently worked in the plant's sample lab, where she filled orders.

 

Berry Tubed Products' human resources director declined to confirm any of the layoffs, referring all questions to the company's corporate headquarters in Indiana.

 

A message left there seeking comment was not returned Tuesday.

 

The plant, which has changed hands several times in the past three years, manufactures plastic packaging products, many of which are used in the cosmetics industry.

 

Bachand said that she and a co-worker in the sample lab were notified on a Friday that the company did not have enough work for them to do. Most of the jobs that were cut were outside of the production and sales departments, she said.

 

Bachand said the company laid off a similar number of its employees in October.

 

Tubed Products was purchased in 2006 during a sale of its parent company to two private equity firms.

 

In 2005, citing rising oil costs, the company laid off about 10 percent of the workforce at the plant. The plant had 630 workers after that round of layoffs.

 

President's memo

 

Bachand said the company's president, Ira Boots, sent a memo to employees several days before Bachand was notified about her job loss detailing economic woes and saying the company had incurred $150 million in additional costs in the first quarter of 2008.

 

"Ever-increasing oil prices, utilities, freight and costs are taking a serious toll on our North American economies and the financial condition of our company and employees," Boots wrote.

 

The memo details a cost-savings plan that includes cutting expenses such as overtime and travel and a resin reduction program. Boots did not detail how many layoffs would happen across all of the company's plants, but wrote that a reduction in workforce would save the company $5 million this year and $11 million annually.

 

Boots also wrote that Berry Plastics is still strong and that "most" of its products are still in demand.

 

"People continue to eat, use personal care products, build and repair along with taking out the trash," he wrote. "Many of our products are in recession resistant markets."

 

But after 41 years on the job, Bachand said the news comes especially hard.

 

"It's not easy," she said. "I'm 59. Where am I supposed to get a job?"

 

The company recently held a 60^th anniversary dinner at the Log Cabin restaurant in Holyoke.

 

"Everyone was calling it the last supper," Bachand said.

 

Mayor Michael A. Tautznik said Tuesday that he had heard the company had cut some of its workforce, but said that no one had provided him with details.

 

"I think it's important that we try to stay abreast of what is happening with the industries in the community," he said. "We can't fix the economy, unfortunately."