Free Republic

he Coca-Cola bottling plant at 830 N. Sixth St. in Lafayette is laying off some of its employees and consolidating its operations to a new automated distribution center in Whitestown, Indiana, according to a recent letter the company sent to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. The plant is owned by Coca-Cola Consolidated, which is the largest Coke bottler in the United States, according to its website. The company says in the letter the layoffs will happen over a two-week period beginning April 18. About 50 people who work at the Lafayette plant will be affected. A spokesperson for Coca-Cola...

There’s a sign outside the General Motors assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that reads: “GM, We Invested in You. Now It’s Your Turn to Invest in US.” Ever since the US’s largest car company’s immense assembly plant opened here 52 years ago, it has dominated this blue-collar town. Now GM workers here are furious that the automaker plans to idle – and perhaps permanently close – the plant. GM stunned its workforce on 26 November, the Monday after Thanksgiving, by announcing it would cut roughly 14,000 jobs and idle five factories in North America, including the Lordstown plant, which employs...

In the end, the price tag was too high: $27,000 per worker a year. That is how much Electrolux workers in West Michigan would have had to give up to save their 2,700 jobs, records obtained by The Press show. The company this morning announced it will close the 127-year-old plant and split its 1.5 million refrigerator production between Anderson, S.C., where wages are half as much, and Mexico, where wages are a tenth of Greenville's. Electrolux AB executives today told workers the plant will close in 2005. The mountain of money Electrolux says it can save proved far too...

The Bush administration has slapped high duties on Chinese TV sets for the alleged problem of "dumping"—which increasingly means selling at prices lower than sets sold by established firms. Let's leave the issue of dumping for now and examine the claim that jobs are being shipped overseas, which is usually what is said when great foreign products appear in US stores. A number of people have observed that TVs are no longer made in the US. The implication is that at least the Bush administration recognizes a problem. The jobs that used to go into making TVs have effectively been...

Manufacturer says high cost of sugar in U.S. prompted exit Several hundred workers at the Lifesavers candy plant in Holland, Michigan are losing their jobs, as the company moves production to Canada. NBC’s Kevin Tibbles reports. HOLLAND, Mich., May 31 — Sometimes steps taken to protect American jobs, however well intentioned, may in fact have exactly the opposite result. Several hundred workers at a Michigan plant that makes Lifesavers candy are losing their jobs — because the company is moving production out of the United States. It is a very sour ending, for an all-American city. THEY’RE CALLING it death...