800 Jobs Down the Toilet

[OBJ]

Local steel mill shutting down one of their hot end mills. 800 jobs go with it. In an area made by steel and coal, this is a terrible blow to the local economy not to mention the people that will be looking for new work where hardly any is available.....and right before the Holidays......why does it seem that things like this always happen right before the Holidays??????<br /><br />My heart goes out to the 800. Several of whom I know.

 

[Ron G]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

That sucks.Why did they close it down?

 

[kenimpzoom]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

The old steel mill closed here in Baytown 20 years ago. It re-opened a few years back.<br /><br />That is a bummer anout timing though, what a way to say Merry Christmas.<br /><br />However, its better they do it now, thant wait afterwards when they blew all their savings on presents.<br /><br />Ken

 

[demsvmejm]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

Ken,<br />What a way to see the good through the bad. I like the way you think, would save a great lot of stress.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

Don't give up hope there Jim. The one in Cleveland shut down and then it was bought shortly afterwards. Sometimes I think it is a plot to dismantle the unions. <br /><br />Still sad for the local economy plus the schools.

 

[txswinner]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

Corp. America at its best.

 

[LubeDude]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

Originally posted by SS Mayfloat:<br /> Sometimes I think it is a plot to dismantle the unions. <br /><br />

Yes, and its about time. Look for a couple of the big three automakers to do the same thing shortly for the same reason.<br /><br />In the know DUDE!

 

[rodbolt]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

OBJ<br /> we had a loss like that here in NC, the little town had an adult population of about 250 souls, about 180 of them worked the local textile mill. not long after cafta the mill closed up and moved the equipment to the Honduras, the little town dried up and blew away.<br /> http://www.stoptheftaa.org/artman/publish/article_138.shtml <br /> lots more sites, google "textile job loss north carolina". while on a positive note quite a few companies from up north have relocated to NC it may not be for long.<br /> cant remember the name of the little town that died though. it was in the paper a few days and seems to have evaporated, like a lot of other textile towns in western NC.<br /> I fear it will only get worse as the globe shrinks.

 

[waterone1@aol.com]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

That is terrible. Unfortunately, more and more of it is going to happen. This is the price that is paid when Americans buy foreign cars, do their christmas shopping at Walmart and buy their tools from Harborfreight. Back in the day, the shopping habits of Americans supported the jobs and even the pensions of americans, these days, the shopping habits of Americans are only supporting the lives of people in other lands (chinese, japanese, etc.).How many things have you bought this year that were built in the US ? With our trade defecit as high as it is, why hasn't our congress put a tax on all incomming products ? Bottom line, we want the cheapest products we can get....we are doing this to ourselves.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

About 5 years ago, AK Steel locked down our local plant after purchasing it. They hired scabs from outside our town to run the plant. It took over 3 years before the union was allowed to start letting their people back in.<br /><br />What I saw was very little production of steel leaving on the railway. Maybe 5 ot 6 railcars would be sent out a day. Yesterday they sent out over 25 railcars of steel. Seems this plant is finally producing steel and they are making money again. However only about 50% of union people were ever allowed to come back.<br /><br />Cars do not have the amount of steel in them as they once had. Even washers and dryers have less in them. THe one thing that has increased in steel use is metal buildings.

 

[stan_deezy]

Re: 800 Jobs Down the Toilet

Originally posted by waterone1:<br /> With our trade defecit as high as it is, why hasn't our congress put a tax on all incomming products ?

They've tried that and gotten into a terrible mess: the countries they tried to tax did the same back to them: no-one wins. It's a market place: you've got to produce good quality product at the right price for the market.<br /><br />Very sad to hear about the 800 job losses. Worked at a steel mill for a while in the late '80's in Scotland: it closed with the loss of several thousand jobs. The thing that bothered me most was it set the record for being the most productive plant in Europe: they still closed it on the grounds that refurbing the blast furnaces was going to cost too much. Hmmm, so explain why they then went ahead and refurbed the sister plant which had a poor production record? Politics played a role I'm afraid to say.