AMES WORKERS ASKING FOR SEVERANCE PACKAGE - "A Giant Sucking Sound"

(09/16/2005)

(See earlier Herald story) Ames True Temper, a Parkersburg plant since 1932, has closed after workers voted 140 to 0, not to accept the companies offer. Ames, which manufactures lawn and garden tools, offered their workers a 58% wage reduction, from $17 an hour to $6 and $8 an hour. They also said workers must pay a $5,000 cash deductible on health coverage (individual) and $10,000 deductible (family). American workers are being dropped like hot rocks for cheap foreign labor, said a union worker. The union rep said "These corporations have thrown us out with the bath water. We can't work cheap enough." The company has been going global for the past several years, shifting operations to Mexico, China and other countries that pay low wages and have little or no benefits. Workers are now asking the company for a severance package. The plant, at the time of closing, employed 162 union workers, although at one time they employed several hundred workers.

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