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Conagra says it’s about to cut nearly half the workforce from its Slim Jim plant in the town of Garner.
It says the 300 job cuts are a direct result of the June 9th explosion that killed three people and injured several others.
In addition to the layoffs, the company says it will also stop guaranteeing 40-hour work weeks to employees.
“It’s just crazy how they're doing us,” complained ConAgra employee Nathaniel Hampton.
Just about two months after bringing back employees to its plant, ConAgra called a worker meeting late Wednesday afternoon to deliver the devastating news.
“We’ve had to make a difficult but necessary decision to layoff about 300 employees in mid November,” said company spokeswoman Stephanie Childs.
The company says OSHA still hasn't finished its investigation in the destroyed South building, where the Slim Jims used to be packaged. As a result, all manufacturing is happening in the faculty's North building.
"We’ve reconfigured that building so you can both process and package the product," said Childs.
But that cut production by half, necessitating the layoffs.
“A lot of us felt like this was coming, but we were surprised at how they did it to us,” said employee Terrence Jones.
“Everybody was angry,” claimed employee Nathaniel Hampton. “They wanted everyone to calm down so they could here the next person speak. It was crazy in there. A lot of people just got up and left.”
Some are now worried the plant might shut down completely, a move the town's mayor wants desperately to avoid.
“We’re going to do whatever we can to make sure they stay in business,” said Mayor Ronnie Williams. “That’s the key focus right now in light of the downturns and layoffs. We want to make sure they continue to operate.”
In the meantime, employees say the timing of the layoffs couldn't be worse.
“They are trying to get rid of us around the holidays. It's just wrong,” said Terrence Jones.
The company sees it differently saying by giving employees two months notice; it hopes the workers will have enough time to find other employment before the layoffs take hold.
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Comments
By Chris on 09/21 06:02 PM
Well, are they just going to stop making slim jims? It's hard for me to believe that there is only one Slim Jim processing plant in all of the US. These death's were a tragedy, and my heart goes out to the victims loved ones. But what's going to happen here? I can't find ANY slim jims ANYWHERE. And now they're laying off slim jim employees? This doesn't make any sense. I've been buying slim jims for year, the 48-count small single originals were $5.88 at Walmart and Sams, for a few weeks I found 100-count singles for $25-50 online but I would never spend that much, and now even the canister and singles are nowhere. This company really blew it! I've been in touch with ConAgraFoods and I was told to use their product locator. lol It's useless. I asked again for more info and I have yet to receive a reply. What surprises me even more, is that there is not one competitor in this market that has anything even similar to the original slim jim. I spent at least $50 a month on slim jims for myself and the kids at the center I volunteer at, and I'm sure millions more did the same. ConAgraFoods has BILLIONS! Rebuilt the plant and get these people back to work! I'm not understanding this! NEED MY SLIM JIMS! If you know where to buy them please email me at chrisinaltoona@gmail.com
By Mike Jernigan on 09/21 07:50 AM
Wonder how many should have never been hired legally to start with?
By Sam on 09/18 09:08 AM
I was laid off in November of last year with no notice - while this is a rough situation, these employees should be happy to have that much advance notice to look for another job.
By Richard Alexander on 09/17 02:35 PM
As an ex-ConAgra employee who's job was "eliminated", my heart goes out to those who will loose their jobs. I worked for them 24 years and 9 months when my job was eliminated.
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