H&R Workers After The Pink Slips | Displaced factory workers weigh the options
When the “people from New York” showed up at H&R 1871 to announce that its corporate owners would be closing it down soon, Phillip Colby, an employee of the Gardner gun manufacturer, was surprised to see that they had bodyguards with them, and that the bodyguards had guns.
“I know why now,” Colby said. “They were so rude.”
Colby, who fixed machines at the plant for five years, proclaimed himself “bitter” about the way the company announced the closure, but he did join some of his fellow laid-off H&R workers at the North Central Career Centers office in Leominster recently to learn about the federal benefits they are entitled to as certified victims of free trade. Remington Arms Co. Inc. bought H&R’s parent company in January. In April it announced that it would close the 230-employee plant by the end of the year, and since then, the layoffs have been trickling along. The federal government has agreed that the workers’ unemployment is a result of international trade, which entitles them to certain “trade adjustment assistance” benefits.
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At the Leominster seminar, Cynthia Krusen, the director of dislocated worker services for the office, gave an upbeat description of those benefits: extended unemployment lasting up to a full year, as much as $15,000 for classes to prepare for a new line of work, relocation assistance and so on. She also told them about the hoops they would have to jump through: a three-hour test in reading and math, meetings with case managers, a workbook assessment of likes, dislikes and abilities designed to steer job seekers toward appropriate paths. Throughout her presentation, Krusen pointed out possible potholes, like not notifying a case manager if a training class is extended by a week or two.
“If there are any changes to your program, it can stop your unemployment,” she said.
Krusen said the trade assistance benefits put the H&R workers in a better position than many other victims of layoffs. And she said H&R has been remarkably willing to work with her staff. The factory has hosted job fairs and opened its doors to case managers.
But Colby and many of his former coworkers remain less than sanguine about their situation. Indeed, though they gamely threw out ideas about future job possibilities — dental hygienist, nursing assistant, something in computers — several of the workers said they were shocked to have to change their game plan after years in a seemingly stable job. One said she had worked as an assembler at the plant for 15 years, commuting just a few minutes a day.
“I thought I was going to retire there, and that was that,” she said.
Still, several of the workers said they expect to be able to find a job with comparable pay. One said she’d been making $10.55 an hour after seven years running a machine at H&R, and she’s already had an interview at The L.S. Starrett Co. in Athol for a similar position that pays $10 an hour with guaranteed overtime. She said she hoped to bypass the benefits on offer at the Leominster office.
“I’d rather have a job,” she said.
That may not be easy for everyone. The H&R workers will find themselves competing for jobs against their fellow Gardner factory workers who were laid off in the recent closing of furniture manufacturer Nichols & Stone. And Krusen said that in recent months the line of people she sees applying for unemployment as she walks into her office has gotten longer and longer. When she asks her colleagues about it, they say it’s not just workers displaced by big plant closings, but also people laid off one by one from companies that remain active.
“I ask ‘Where are all these people from,” she said,’ “And they go ‘Everywhere.’”
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