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Smithfield Cuts 760 Jobs In Closure Of Plant City Facility

TBO.com photo by KEVIN BRADY

Representatives of Smithfield Foods plan to meet with city officials today to discuss the closure of the facility.

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By GEORGE WILKENS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 16, 2009

Updated: 02/17/2009 09:32 pm

PLANT CITY - Tuesday's announcement that Smithfield Foods will cease local operations means not only the departure of this city's largest private employer, but loss of a meat-packing plant that has provided jobs for generations.

The Plant City facility that employs 760 workers is among six being closed by the Virginia-based processor of packaged meats and fresh pork. Closure of the facility at 4611 Lykes Road, just off Turkey Creek Road, is scheduled for Sept. 1.

Smithfield bought the 170,000-square-foot plant in 1996 from Tampa-based Lykes Bros., which opened it in 1967.

The plant helped launch the city's industrial park by becoming an anchor tenant, said longtime City Commissioner Mike Sparkman, recalling the city took steps to lure Lykes Bros. to the site.

Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce President Marion Smith said the announcement of the closing of the city's largest private employer left her speechless.

"It's a big one," she said of the loss of local jobs, the largest number in memory.

"Oh, it's breaking everybody's hearts," said Smithfield employee Annie Ard of Plant City., a worker there since 1970. "There was crying, a lot of crying.''

"I'm sad, but I'm OK," said Ard, who had planned to retire next year when she turns 65. "It's the young families out there that just break your heart.''

"You've got a lot of young mothers; they've got homes and new cars and they lose their jobs," Ard said. "I'm just saying a prayer for all those people."

Salaried employees will receive severance packages, but hourly workers like Ard – who works as a spice mixer - will only receive 60 days notice prior to layoff, which will be done in phases by product division.

Production line workers average about $11.85 hourly, with maintenance workers earning close to $20, she estimated.

The impact of the closing of the largest plant in this city of about 35,000 will be widespread.

Tierra Mexicana, a Mexican food store and deli about a mile from the Smithfield plant, expects to take a hit from the impending closure, said Anna Molina. "It will be really bad for us," said Molina, a Tierra Mexicana employee who has friends who work at Smithfield. "We see between 25 and 50 workers from Smithfield in here every day for lunch. It's an important loss for Plant City."

Suresh Patel owns a convenience store about a half-mile from Smithfield, where plant workers regularly ring up sales.

"We have about 50 employees a day come in here from Smithfield," Patel said. "On Fridays, we have more than 100 people from the plant come in cashing their checks and buying gas. We will lose a lot of business."

"This is going to have a severe impact on our business," said Dale Deonarain, who runs the 1 Stop Shop convenience store on Turkey Creek Road, less than a mile from the plant. "I am really concerned. We get 10 to 15 people a day from Smithfield in here for lunch, and in this economy every penny counts."

Local Smithfield executives met with Plant City officials this morning to outline the closing.

"This is not good news," Mayor Rick Lott said after he and City Manager David Sollenberger participated in the half-hour meeting with plant manager Stuart Shepherd and local vice president of operations Doug Carouser.

"But we've had plant closings in the last several years and some of them have been purchased by other companies and reopened," Lott said. "Hopefully, another organization will step in and take over this plant."

"We will be working closely with the Committee of One Hundred," the Tampa-based economic development partnership that recruits new businesses to the area, the mayor added.

"It's been a great-performing plant for a long time," Lott said of the local facility, which packages spiral hams, hot dogs and luncheon meats and includes huge areas for production and warehousing, including cold storage.

The chamber of commerce president said she will do what she can to help the company find a buyer.

"We're just sorry to see it's going to happen. Smithfield has been a good chamber member and we've taken tours out there," Smith said. There is little the chamber can do other than assist in recruiting another company to take over the plant.

"We'd have to get another big industry to come in, but I don't know of any that are looking right now," given the economic climate, Smith said.

In a statement issued today about the closing, Smithfield Packing president Timothy O. Schellpeper said, "We've been in this community a long time, and this is a very difficult move for us. We will work with union officials to discuss the transition for Plant City employees."

Some workers at the plant are members of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union. A spokesman for the local could not be reached for comment.

Some salaried workers will be offered transfers, the company said.

Smithfield's director of corporate communications, Dennis Pittman, said he did not have information on the average wage at its Plant City site, nor know how many workers will be offered transfers. "We will take a look as we progress on what we might have available" for displaced Plant City workers, "the vast majority" of whom are hourly employees, he said.

Under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, companies provide employees with 60-day notification of plant closings and mass layoffs.

With sales of $12 billion, Smithfield Foods is the leading processor and marketer of fresh pork and packaged meats, as well as the largest producer of hogs.

The other plants to be closed are: Smithfield, Va.; Elon, N.C.; Great Bend, Kan.; New Riegal Ohio; and Hastings, Neb.

The consolidation, which will result in 1,800 layoffs, is among several elements of a restructuring of the company's pork group, estimated to result in projected annual savings of $55 million by next year and $125 million by 2011.

And the city itself will feel impacts. Smithfield is a major municipal water customer. When the plant closes, annual water revenue will decline by $676,000, according to estimates by City Finance Director Martin Wisgerhof.

"We are taking immediate action to deal with it," the city manager said in a memo to city employees.

TBO producer Kevin Brady contributed to this report. Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4433.

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