Plant closings big blow to SEK workforce

COFFEYVILLE — In 1999 Amazon — just a dot-com hopeful at that point — opened its largest distribution center on an industrial access road just north of Coffeyville. It quickly became the city’s largest employer.
In late September of this year the company announced the facility will close its doors.
The move, which will be finalized in February, will affect about 650 current Amazon employees as well as the many temporary workers the company normally recruits during the holiday season.
Southwire Co., a manufacturer of electrical wires and cables, has said it will close in March, erasing an additional 200 jobs.
John Deere, also in Coffeyville, announced in August that it was laying off more than three dozen.
The Montgomery County Recovery Team estimates the combined closures will result in the loss of $18.6 million in payroll for southeast Kansas employees.
State and local officials, failing to turn Amazon’s head with the largest retention package in Kansas history, have been frenzied in their efforts to forestall the losses that threaten Montgomery County.
As a part of that effort, Coffeyville Community College last month hosted the first of two planned job fairs in the Nellis Hall gymnasium, where affected workers were able to mingle with the roughly 20 Montgomery County employers in attendance.
The next fair, on Dec. 18, will be open to employers across greater southeast Kansas.

IN LIGHT of Allen County’s labor shortage, the mass layoffs in Coffeyville could have material consequences for this area.
For years Montgomery County has attracted a higher percentage of daily commuters than other county in southeast Kansas. Allen County, during the same period, ranked second.
According to Stacia Meek, executive director of the Coffeyville Chamber of Commerce, at least three Allen County employers are scheduled to attend this month’s job fair: B & W Trailer Hitches (Humboldt), Gates Corporation (Iola) and Precision International (Iola).
According to more than one Amazon worker, Gates recruiters have already made appearances on the Amazon campus and ads for the Iola-based company have been appearing in staff break rooms.
And with good reason. The concentration of so many jobs in the hands of so few companies has meant that, when two of the county’s biggest employers close down in a single season, even those workers whose first choice is to remain in Montgomery County are being forced to look elsewhere.
“Just think about it,” said Amber Shipley, a staff management employee at Amazon. “They lost the ammunition plant in Parsons, Southwire is done as of March, Amazon is done pretty much in January and John Deere is laying off — there’s nothing left.”
“I’ve never seen it this bad,” said another Amazon employee making the rounds at the fair. “We’ve always seen something go out, but there has always been something else to come back in.”
Of the many job seekers the Register spoke with, most them were willing to commute to Allen County for work on the condition the pay justify the price of gas and the wear incurred on their vehicle. Many Amazon employees were aware of current co-workers who already make the opposite trek, to Coffeyville from Iola or Yates Center, without complaint.
Living in this area, said Amazon picker Michelle Oerman, you expect to commute. “My husband’s a welder and he drives to Neodesha, which is 45 minutes. I’ve gone as far as Tulsa as well as Bartlesville, Oklahoma.”
Bartlesville is taking note. The Tulsa World reported in October that David Wood, Bartlesville’s Development Authority president, is ramping up recruitment efforts in hopes of attracting displaced workers his way. Bartlesville, another town where job growth is outpacing population, is roughly an hour south of Coffeyville.
Oklahoma, though, would prefer its employees reside — and spend their paychecks — in-state. And so, in an attempt to transform commuters into residents, the city has recently approved a large-scale housing project.

If the job is right and housing available, many at last month’s fair would consider relocating to Allen County, too.
“If I were going to work there,” said Tiara Allred, a former Amazon employee, “because I don’t have a husband or kids, I would move.”
Doug and Liz Smith, a young, married couple, would be willing to move north, too, assuming they could find affordable housing. The operative word is “affordable.” The Smiths both work at Amazon — in maintenance and shipping, respectively — and will witness the loss of their entire household income in the weeks to come. The couple has a one-year old son.
“I’ve done manufacturing most of my life, so I have no problem with that,” said Doug. “I’m looking for whatever’s paying well.” He didn’t see anything promising at last month’s fair and plans to attend the follow-up gathering in December.

There’s never a good time to lose your job. But there is bad timing.
Elizabeth Holland, who has worked at Amazon for nearly six years, has a good sense of the roiling labor market into which she’ll be dropped come January. She and her colleagues are promised a small severance package if they remain until the first of next year. But Holland doesn’t want to wait.
“I would like to just go ahead and find a job, because the job market here after Jan. 1 is going to be flooded. I’m scared to death that I’m not going to have a job after all of this. That’s why I’m here (at the job fair). There’s nothing left in Coffeyville. We’re worried about the competitive war in salaries. Where they’re going to try and say ‘Hey, you want $14? Well, she’ll take $11, so I’m going to go ahead and hire her,’ even if she has less experience.”
Another Amazon employee complained, after meeting with Gates at a recent on-campus gathering, that the company was offering only part-time and night-shift positions. “We’ve got to have day jobs. And full-time jobs.”
A representative with Gates told the Register the company is hiring both part- and full-time positions but confirmed that, because the company arranges its workers’ hours based on seniority, the majority of the openings will be night and evening positions.

Two weeks after Lea Paine was told she would no longer have a job beginning in February, she was given the 25-cent raise she’d been requesting for over a year. A week after that she was promoted. She’d obviously been a good employee. But of course Amazon isn’t leaving because its Kansas workers aren’t qualified. It is leaving because, as the company continues to gorge itself on market share, its business model has shifted. State tax incentives aren’t as compelling as they once were. Now, fast shipping is king. Most of Amazon’s customers, conditioned to expect their packages in a day or two, live in big cities, and the company wants to be close by. Amazon would have paid Lea Paine to transfer to Dallas. But Dallas isn’t an option. She is raising an 11-year-old daughter on her own, in Cherryvale, and takes care of her aging parents in Independence. “I could move but only maybe an hour or two away from my parents, and that would be max.” Paine was one of the first to arrive at Nellis Hall, which made her prey to the handful of reporters who were there early to extract their quotes from the dozens of soon-to-be-displaced workers. By the time the Register spoke with her, she had questions of her own. She’d heard mention of the reported jobs at B&W and Gates. “Well, they’re having another job fair in December, right?” Paine asked. “Now, are these companies in your area really going to come down? Because we’ll be here.”