Ahlstrom Offering Early Retirement
Ahlstrom Corp. is continuing its job-cutting measures, this time including an early-retirement package being offered to workers at the former Dexter plant in Windsor Locks, according to the Finnish-based company officials.
Ahlstrom hopes the retirement offer will draw 20 to 30 workers to sign up, and the company hopes to wrap up the process by February, according to Paul Marold, vice president and general manager of the Windsor Locks plant.
Asked if the company might consider forced layoffs if there aren’t enough takers for the retirement offer, Marold said that option is highly unlikely.
“We’re tightening the belt everywhere,” he said, but added that the company’s 480 Windsor Locks workers include a high number of long-time employees with as much as 40 years on the job.
“The global marketplace is very challenging,” Marold said. But he added the early retirement option “is the most humane way” of cutting costs, while avoiding more painful layoffs.
Other segments of the company have been hit much harder, as Ahlstrom announced today that during the fourth quarter of 2007 it took “additional restructuring actions in various parts of the organization reducing altogether 250 positions.”
Combined with previously announced restructuring measures, a total of four plants in Europe and nine manufacturing lines will be closed, boosting the total number of job cuts company-wide to 650, according to the corporate announcement from Ahlstrom President and Chief Executive Officer Jukka Moisio. The total one-time costs of the restructuring will be about $66.5 million in U.S. currency, a charge that will be taken against earnings for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, Moisio said.
“The main focus area of the restructuring measures is the European operations of the Specialty Papers segment including the closure of three noncompetitive manufacturing lines during the first half of 2008, affecting 450 positions,” he said. That includes plans to close plants in Italy and France.
Ahlstrom bought the Windsor Locks plant in 2000, after the 233-year-old Dexter Co. went out of business that year. The plant, now known as Ahlstrom Windsor Locks LLC, makes a variety of “fiber composites,” or paper products from wood pulp and synthetic fibers, ranging from baby wipes to tea bags.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments