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Kerman Factory to Lay Off 130: Rock-Tenn Box-Folding Plant Will Close Following a Restructuring Plan.

Posted on: Thursday, 23 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Bethany Clough, The Fresno Bee, Calif.

Mar. 23--Kerman's largest private employer will close its box-folding plant and lay off about 130 employees.

The Rock-Tenn Co. plans to close its plant on Madera Avenue later this year, saving the company about $2million a year, according to a news release. Much of the business will be absorbed into its Greenville, Texas, plant.

Employees at the Kerman plant referred questions to officials at the corporate headquarters in Norcross, Ga., who did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Workers said they were given a 60-day notice Friday and told the plant would close May 16, though the news release said the plant would close during the third quarter of 2006.

Rock-Tenn has owned the plant for about two years, but the location has been operating as a box- and carton-folding company for at least 15 years.

Workers turn cardboard into cartons for Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Sears shirt and gift boxes. They also make boxes for bakeries and Albertsons and Safeway grocery stores.

"We're very, very sad," said Sharon Young of Tranquillity, who has worked at the plant for six years. "A lot of us have become like family. Some people have been here 15, 16 years."

The closure is part of a restructuring following the parent company's June 2005 purchase of Gulf States Paper Corp.'s Pulp and Paperboard Packaging business.

Since then, Rock-Tenn has announced plans to close carton-folding plants in Waco, Texas, and Marshville, N.C.

The company is relocating underused equipment from Gulf States folding plants and will add the Kerman plant into the consolidation. "Greenville is the larger of the two plants and is much closer to our bleached paperboard mill acquired from Gulf States," the company said.

Employees from the Fresno County Workforce Investment Board met with plant workers during their shifts Wednesday to talk about job options, including training in other "hot" industries, such as health care and construction, said board senior outplacement specialist Tamico Thomas.

Young and others said the plant paid well and wondered at their chances of finding jobs with similar paychecks.

"I don't believe 100% will find jobs at the same rate, but they can make close to -- and sometimes more," Thomas said.

Rock-Tenn employee Yvonne Frisbee of Kerman said that after talking with the county, she was considering going back into the medical field, an industry she'd left 15 years ago.

"I'd need more training," she said.

The Rock-Tenn announcement comes less than three weeks after the De Francesco & Sons onion and garlic dehydrating plant, west of Firebaugh, announced its closure and laid off 137 workers.

But the outlook for the Rock-Tenn employees is not bleak, Thomas said.

"Although we're having all these layoffs, the opportunities still abound," she said.

Kerman City Manager Ron Manfredi said the interest and activity by new businesses in the community of about 8,500 in the past two years have far outpaced the past 10.

The closure is "more of an indication of some sort of corporate decision as opposed to some kind of local economic situation," he said. "The whole paper industry is very volatile."

Although it may be hard for workers to find new jobs that pay the same in the short term, it will get easier as the local economy picks up, Manfredi said. He estimated that 25% to 30% of Rock-Tenn employees live in Kerman.

Rock-Tenn did not own the 80,000- to 90,000-square-foot building, Manfredi said. It will probably be fairly easy to find another company to lease it, considering the interest in the city, he said.

The reporter can be reached at bclough@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6431.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Fresno Bee, Calif.

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Source: The Fresno Bee

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