My hometown is dying.
“T-shirt giant Gildan Activewear Inc. will shut its Valleyfield textile plant by year-end at a cost of 155 jobs and cut payroll at its Montreal knitting plant by 50 as it shifts production to new high-volume factories in Central America and the Caribbean.
Gildan - which recently posted record profits - is also firing people at recently acquired plants in North Carolina and Virginia that manufacture sports socks, laying off 335 in the next couple of months.
The moves will leave Gildan with 600 workers in Montreal and 800 in the United States out of a total workforce of 13,000, an increase from 7,400 in 2004.
"We're forced to shift production from North America to our new plants in Honduras and the Dominican Republic, where we've invested heavily in state-of-the-art equipment to get the low costs we need to compete with China and other Asian producers," said Laurence Sellyn, executive vice-president and CFO.
Workers will get severance and psychological help, and an employment office is being set up jointly with union representatives and management. Valleyfield is an industrial town 70 kilometres west of Montreal that has seen several plant closings recently.”
1. 155 jobs cut
1a). Firing people "at recently acquired plants" (that really stinks)
2. Gildan “recently posted record profits”
3. New plants in Honduras and Dominican Republic
Grrrrr.
I’m getting Lou Dobbs on the phone right now!!
1 comment:
I used to love valleyfield...how can it be dying? what about the regatta?? I've heard that my home town of aylmer, quebec has become a great big city! who knew?
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