Our company had to layoff 5 people Friday. I had to do one of them. What was the worst thing was that I knew about it for 2 weeks and could not say anything. One was buying a car so we dropped subtle hints but he did not catch on. They got a good package 3/4 bonus 1 week pay per year service (4 week Min) 2 months Cobra and placement services. One guy had 16 years in. Management sucks!!! The textile business sucks!!!

The textile business is great when it's going good and real bad when it's not. I had the curious position of being in the UTWA when I was 17 (making way more money than I should have at that age) in a factory where my dad had fought to keep the union out. After he left there, even he admitted the union was the best thing that ever happened to the plant. Labor laws being what they are though, most of the work ended up in the non union facility in NC (which eventually folded), and then to outside of the country. In my lifetime alone, that factory went from being the town's largets employer by far, to running mostly by computer aided machinery.

Seems like some of the people who get "downsized" are the last ones to figure out what is happening.  They are shocked when brought in for the pink slip.  If I ever get that naive and so deaf to the informal communication network, please shoot me.

That's a pretty decent package, plus you still have job.  Even though it was a bad day, it could have been much worse, as it was in my case.

Monday afternoon at 4:45 a all hands meeting was called.  Everyone in the company was informed that the investors backed out the company was immediately out of business.  Absolutely no warning, no severence package, no pay for accumulated vacation time, and all health insurance cancelled immediately.  What really sucked for one employee was during the previous week he stated that he hoped nothing bad would happen to the company as he was buying a house on Friday.  That Monday he was a new home owner.

I have noticed others on this board who were laid off have slowly been finding jobs.  Hopefully, my time will come very soon.

We do monitoring systems to allow the plant to run as efficiently as possible. That seems to no longer help because for plain stuff like sheeting you can buy it from Asia cheaper than you can make it. At least they finish it here.I personally install and service Sedo and Beacon control systems for Dye machines. The cost of energy killed the business in California. They had there gas prices go up 100% a month. It looks like the market is stabilizing now I hope. I do not want to be in the next round.