View full sizeForty-seven employees at the Tillamook Cheese Factory's packaging department worked their last day on Saturday. The operation is changing the way it does business. TILLAMOOK -- The tears flowed freely, the hugs too, as 47 workers punched the clock for the final time at the
this weekend. Saturday marked the last day for much of the plant's packaging operation.
"This is really hard," said a tearful woman who asked to be identified only by her first name, Gail. Severance packages came with the agreement not to badmouth the company, and she feared any comment might get her in trouble. The soon-to-be 63-year-old has been at the factory for six years.
"Monday is my birthday," she said Friday. "Today is my last shift. I'm not worried about me. I'm worried about the kids. This is family."
One young co-worker had saved two years for a house and finally secured a loan, only to lose it after word of the layoffs came, Gail said.
In the parking lot, Gail paused to finish signing a card for her co-workers, then welcomed the hug of another woman. "It is going to be such a hard day today."
The
announced in early January that it would cut its packaging operation at the Oregon plant, eliminating nearly half the positions.
In the January news release, CEO Harold Strunk said the current business model was inefficient and costly. Previously, cheese was shipped from the creamery's Boardman factory, to Tillamook for aging, then out to Idaho to be shredded and sliced, then back to Tillamook for sorting and distribution.
The plan now is to ship the cheese to facilities in Mountain Home, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, where it will be cut, wrapped and distributed. The Tillamook plant will continue manufacturing and packaging chunk cheese and is looking into adding shredding capabilities to the operation.
The 47 workers received a severance plan that includes undisclosed cash and benefits, as well as services to help them find new jobs, said Walter LaChapelle, business representative for the Teamsters Local 58 union, which represents the packaging workers.
"It was a flexible package between cash in the pocket or a lengthy amount of continued health insurance, or options in between" LaChapelle said last week. "Although the union has identified this as a substantial severance package under the circumstances, it still doesn't detract from the union's members' disappointment and disagreement with the company's decisions to outsource these jobs."
View full sizeAngel Soots, 26, gets ready to go home after working her last day at the Tillamook Cheese Factory on Saturday. Along with the cash and benefits was the provision some describe as a "gag order," as well as a provision for confidentiality. The first prohibits employees from disparaging the association, while the latter protects trade secrets, such as recipes or any other proprietary information, said Brad Eagelston, the creamery association's senior director of human resources.
"Those are both very common sections of severance agreements," Eagelston said last week. The reasoning behind the gag order is so people don't say something that isn't necessarily true or the full truth, he said.
"Both of these sections were negotiated with the union. Partially, it's damage control. This agreement was really crafted in that time where there was some negative comments. It was precautionary."
The Tillamook County Creamery Association is a co-op of 110 dairy farm families who own the association. It was formed in 1909. The factory is open to tours and receives nearly 1 million visitors a year and is a top tourist destination on the Oregon coast, said Chandra Allen, spokeswoman for the creamery association.
For Jeannie Taylor, Friday was her first day back after two weeks of medical leave, and she didn't know whether she still had a job. But she wasn't quite ready to call it the end.
"I love it here. If I can stay, I'm gonna stay. I've only been here one year, but I'll stay if they let me."
And if not?
"I'll reapply for another job here."