Posted on 11/15/2004 12:57:10 PM PST by Willie Green
Lillie Scott said goodbye to more than just workplace friends and her job of 26 years when Mr. Coffee shut the doors of its cavernous gray factory in a tidy Glenwillow industrial park.
When Scott's $9-an-hour job making coffee makers four years ago was transferred to Mexico and Mississippi with 338 others, she and many workmates also bid farewell to financial security. Her sporadic jobs as a home health aide never last long enough to get benefits, and the $800 she gets in monthly unemployment between jobs doesn't cover her rent and other bills.
Those who inherited the Glenwillow jobs eventually faced similar upheaval. Last year, Mr. Coffee's parent firm, Sunbeam Corp., closed the plants, citing the need to shift work to where production is cheapest. Fourteen hundred people lost their jobs at Sunbeam's compact white stucco factory in Matamoros, Mexico; 265 were let go in Hattiesburg, Miss.
"There is less of everything," sighs Alejandra Castilleja Rodriguez, 42, who welded heating elements for eight years at Sunbeam's Matamoros plant, making less than half of Scott's hourly wage. Castilleja spent a month looking for work after the plant closed and ended up cleaning offices for less than half what she earned at Sunbeam. She takes home 800 pesos a week, about $69, and cleans houses to earn extra money.
Sunbeam told workers at its longtime Matamoros factory, which made a variety of products, that production was shifting to China. A spokesman for Sunbeam's owner, American Household Inc., refused to discuss its plant closures or coffeemaker production sites because the company is privately held. The Chinese appliance makers identified in U.S. Customs records also declined to comment, citing customer confidentiality.
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you... woo woo woo...
Mr. Coffee? I had no idea they were even still around. The last Mr. Coffee I had I replaced with a Braun years ago. It lasted three times longer then the Mr. Coffee.
We are hiring in Far east cleveland... $10/hr to start.
Organized labor, OSHA, trial lawyers, and insane taxation has nothing to do with companies moving to locations where they can stay afloat. -sarcasm
Tinkers to Evans to Chance
America to Mexico to China
Suburbs or actually Cleveland?
Nine bucks an hour is 'financial security'?
Ashtabula
You can eliminate taxes altogether, disband OSHA, drive the lawyers off a cliff, and you still won't compete with 50-cents a day labor.
Freepmail.
"statistics show that workers in China are paid an average of 47 cents per hour, compared with more than $21 for Americans "
Questions ?
That's the "official" annually wage, the reality via subcontractors, etc. shows a much lower wage.
>>$10/hr to start.>>
That will pay the rent... now how do I eat and clothe myself?
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