Appleton Paper Inc. Cuts Jobs

It looks like another manufacturer is going to be getting rid of staff in order to deal with its fiscal issues. This time it is the workers of the Appleton Papers Inc. who are going to get the boot from their employer. The company, which many of you may not be familiar with at all with the company here is a look at how the company describes itself:

“We don’t choose to make every kind of paper. We produce only specialty-coated papers like carbonless, thermal and security products. And it’s something we do extraordinarily well.

For more than 50 years, we have also been pioneers in microencapsulation, the remarkable process that makes carbonless paper work so well. Appleton scientists have continued to develop and refine microencapsulation technology and explore opportunities for microencapsulation to extend to applications beyond carbonless paper. ”

The company, which is based in Ohio, is getting ready to get rid of about 330 workers, which is enough to qualify as a mass layoff action. This many layoffs, or any number greater than 50, is enough to require the employer to file a notification with the state and require them to give some real notice time to the soon to be displaced workers. To that end the layoffs will not actually take place until the 20^th of May, giving workers a little more than a month to find new work. Though it is likely that many of them will not have a position when the layoffs come.
Some of the cut workers will be members of the local steelworkers union, so they may have the right to additional benefits, or perhaps a severance package, but at the current moment we do not have any information about the details of any packages the company or the union may offer.

Of course, the job cuts could be much worse as other cuts to the manufacturing sector have been in the recent months. Some of you may recall our earlier coverage about the massive job cuts to P&G. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage here is an excerpt:

“More bad news is coming to the workers of Procter & Gamble. The company is getting ready to get rid of a large number of jobs in order to help make ends meet. The job cuts, which are expected to number about 5,700 will all be from nonmanufacturing positions, which means that their white-collar workers should be on the lookout for pink slips in their inboxes.

At the current moment the layoffs are beginning, as the company has sent notices of mass layoffs to several states, but not all of the cuts will come at once. The company is looking to have made all of its needed cuts by the end of 2013, so workers who do not get notice right away should be aware that the slips might be coming down the road.

The company is, for its part, looking to save as many currently employed workers by using a policy of attrition to get rid of as many open jobs, as well as spots made by retiring employees. Though at the current moment there is no exact number on how many of the 5,700 jobs will be cut with this method. At the current moment there is also little to no information about which jobs will be cut, whether they are union or non-union or what kind of severance packages they may be entitled to. We will likely have to wait until the layoffs go into effect, which is 60 days in many of the impacted states, in order to find out more.”