Bacon Veneer Company to Cut Jobs

The Bacon Veneer Company, a major employer in its local region, has decided to cut back on jobs as a way to save on costs. The company is getting ready to get rid of about 50 workers, which may or may not trigger a mass layoff action. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

The only good news is that if the company triggers a mass layoff action that means that workers must be given some advance notice before they are taken off of the payroll. If the company does not trigger a mass layoff action then they will be able to cut jobs at will and not give workers any extra benefit before taking them off of the payrolls.

Interestingly enough the company has not put out a release about the job cuts. Instead their most recent release has been written about a new plan for the company and how they are going to get more effective, “The Bacon Veneer Company Announces it`s new line of Reclaimed Veneer in Multiple Species. The Bacon Veneer Company is working with Premium Salvage companies to bring the best logs up to be sliced into veneer. Interest in timber salvaged or reclaimed from old logs cut from old growth forests has increased recently. Logs harvested over 100 years ago and transported by water often sank en-route to mills. The resulting lost ”underwater forest” lay on the bottoms of rivers and lakes until recently as proper environmental and mechanical procedures for retrieving them have been developed.”

This is, of course, not the only company that uses wood for its principal product, that will end up with job cuts that create problems for workers keeping their current positions, “It looks like the International Paper Co. is at it again. The company is laying off more workers, this time in the San Antonio area, in a bid to enhance its profitability. The job cuts, which are set to impact 117 jobs, are part of a larger consolidation plan by the company. The plan is set to cut back on both labor and operations expenses by consolidating paper productions at fewer facilities. The loss of these 117 jobs in a single city is enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines, meaning the workers will be given at least 90 days of warning before they are taken off of the payroll.”