600 Guide workers to leave plant for last time

[OhioChick]

12/14/2006, 6:33 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) — About 600 Guide Corp. employees will lose their jobs effective Monday as the 100-year-old factory prepares for a June 2007 closing.

The layoffs affect about 350 hourly workers and many of the 150 salaried employees, United Auto Workers Local 663 president Steve Lewis said. The 150 salaried employees at the company's technology and customer support center in Pendleton also are affected, he said.

Another round of layoffs is planned Jan. 2 in Anderson, affecting 160 first-tier workers who have highest seniority. After that round, 300 people will work at the plant.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/news-39/1166139606220460.xml&storylist=newsmichigan

<snip> Guide also has announced plans to close a Monroe, La., plant next year. That facility has about 700 employees.

[napi21]

1. What does Guide Corp. make? Ot's seems to be associated

the the car business, but I don't recallever hearing of them.

[OhioChick]

5. Automotive Lighting Solutions.....

http://www.guidecorp.com/ie/guide_fs.htm

[napi21]

6. Are they shutting down because of the state of the US auto industry?

I feel so bad for the workers there. My guess is that a lot of them havequite a few years of service and slim to no other skills, not to mention that there's probably no other mfg.nearby to even try for another job.

[OhioChick]

8. Yes, the auto industry has been hit hard.

I can't seem to find any information as to whether the jobs will be outsourced to their South Korea or Mexico locations, or the job loss is strictly related to the battered auto industry here.

[AwakeAtLast]

14. Anderson has been hit very hard

I would call it the Flint, MI of the auto parts industry. There used to be 60,000 employed by GM here in its heyday, and now there is not one GM job left here. I am moving away from here in March. Depressing to be here.

[brentspeak]

2. Meanwhile, the NYT is publishing stories about Goldman Sach's execs and their $650K bonuses

The Haves...and everybody else.

[lovuian]

3. Greed greed and more Greed

we are bleeding jobs here in America and sending them to India and China

Depression is coming

[hogwyld]

9. I'm already depressed. n/t

[cyberpj]

4. They were in environmental trouble before - maybe it's related?:

Don't know how this case turned out -
but if they move overseas they won't have to worry about those pesky environmental laws.



U.S. SUES GUIDE CORP. AND CROWN ENVIRONMENTAL
US Department of Justice
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Justice on behalf of the the EPA today filed a lawsuit against Guide Corp. and Crown Environmental Group, Inc. for discharging pollutants into the White River and causing one of the largest fish kills in Indiana history.

The United States alleges that the companies violated the Clean Water Act when, on multiple occasions in December 1999, they discharged toxic pollutants from the Guide facility in Anderson, Ind., into the local wastewater treatment plant, disrupted plant operations, and caused pollutants to enter the White River. Pollutants discharged into the river included ammonia, thiram and other thiurams, amines, and carbamates.

Shortly after these discharges, hundreds of thousands of fish died along a 50-mile stretch of the river, and the ecosystem of the river was severely damaged.

The United States also alleges that the defendants violated federal and local wastewater pretreatment standards by failing to notify the sewage plant about the changes in their operations and the pollutants they discharged into the plant.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pjus/is_200004/ai_3354001170/pg_1

[54anickel]

7. The were fined and given "probation"

http://epa.gov/region5/orc/enfactions/enfactions2002/law-criminal.htm#Guide100201

IMPACT: On October 12, 2001, Guide Corporation was sentenced after pleading guilty to seven criminal negligence charges arising from a 1999 pollution event when more than 100 tons of fish and other aquatic creatures began dying along more than 40 miles of the White River in Indiana. Guide Corporation was the operator of an automotive signal and light manufacturing facility in Anderson, Indiana. As a part of its sentence, Guide was required to submit to the Probation Department a comprehensive environmental training and education program. In addition, Guide was fined $1,956,000, ordered to pay $275,000 in restitution to the City of Anderson, and to forfeit $1,956,000 to the United States, to be used to benefit the environment. Guide was also required to serve five years on probation, during which time it must comply with all environmental laws.


BACKGROUND: According to the charges filed in the case, in late 1999, Guide stopped its metal finishing operations at its Anderson facility. From about October, 1999 until December 20, 1999, Guide employees and other persons used high-pressure hoses to scour tanks and associated plumbing to remove the contaminants. Guide employees then treated the wastewater for later discharge to the sewer. After initial attempts to treat the wastewater failed to sufficiently lower pollutant concentrations, Guide employees and others added substantially more amounts of HMP-2000, a wastewater treatment compound. In addition, Guide employees and others allegedly bypassed a clarifier, used to allow treatment chemicals time to react with pollutants in the wastewater. On ten separate occasions in December, 1999, Guide employees improperly discharged approximately 1,610,000 gallons of wastewater containing dimethyldithiocarbamate, the active ingredient of HMP-2000, as well as a number of breakdown products such as carbon disulfide. Guide employees and other persons negligently failed to test any of its discharged wastewater to determine if it contained concentrations of HMP-2000 or carbon disulfide. The City of Anderson sampled Guide's discharges in December, and later analysis of the samples revealed the presence of high levels of pollutants which, either singly or by interaction with other pollutants, "will cause an interference with the Anderson sewage plant, or any wastewater treatment or sludge process, or will constitute a hazard to animals", according to the charges.

[AwakeAtLast]

15. I think it may have just hastened the process

I worked at Guide in the mid 90's. This was when it was under the "Delphi Interior & Lighting" umbrella. All you heard about was improving quality, but every time you turned around, there was a new plant manager coming in. They knew it was going to happen then, it was just a matter of when.

[jus_the_facts]

10. I live in West Monroe...we lost State Farm Corporate Offices located here for 40yrs....

....and we lost over 1500 jobs when they left here as well. :eyes: :nopity:

P.S. Gov. Blanco just got back from CHINA and KUWAIT beggin' for some corporation to build some/any kind of manufacturing plant 30 miles east of here....f'n ass backwards bullshit!!! :grr:

[sarcasmo]

11. Kick and Nom for how sad this Country has become.

Remember, the economy is doing just fine.

[Megahurtz]

12. More and More Losing their Jobs

everyday. What are these people going to do, join the ranks of the Homeless?
Every-fucking-thing is outsourced now.

What a cold cruel Country this has become.

[blues90]

13. This is as sad as it is scary

I have been affected by the down turn of the auto trade . All my experience with ford means nothing now and I don;t have a clue what to do for work now , not a clue .

All these jobs lost forever because you know once they are gone they are never coming back , never .

This is certainly not america the land of the free or american dream unless this is defined as homeless .