If you believe the news reports and the way they have been slanted, the reason O'Sullivan Industries has cut salaries and benefits for its employees in Lamar is because it was forced to pay a $200,000 utilities bill to the city of Lamar.
A handful of Turner Report commenters have made the same argument...Lamar city officials forced this by not "trying to work with" O'Sullivan officials. That is nonsense. Some unavoidable business problems, combined with a series of misguided decisions put O'Sullivan Industries in the situation in which it finds itself.
It asked Lamar city officials to waive an approximate $1.2 million in utility bills, which would be paid at some unspecified date to help the company. My guess is O'Sullivan officials were well aware this idea was going to be rejected, but now the bad publicity, which for months has centered around O'Sullivan alone, can be shared by the City Council.
It is amazing to me that so many people are buying into this, people who would never even think about asking for an extra six months to pay their utility bills.
Hopefully, O'Sullivan Industries will rebound from its current woes, right itself, and return to what it once was, but history is full of examples of companies that have tried to get concessions and outright gifts from cities, then shut down without notice. Recent history has seen O'Sullivan moving its corporate headquarters to Atlanta to attract a CEO who no longer is with the company, and who brought a group of his Newell Rubbermaid buddies with him, who did nothing but continue to increase the company's problems. The company also shut down its South Boston, Va. plant and is moving more and more of its production overseas.
In this business climate, it is hard to believe any proclamations from new CEO Jim Malone, a Florida resident, about how eager the company is to stay in Lamar.
Hopefully, it will, but city officials are wise not to put all of their eggs in one basket.
10 comments:
Randy, this is form the guy who has been so critical of you of late. Thank you for giving a more balanced opinion of the situation. This was the most worthy commentary you've given. I appreciate you being fair to both sides of the situation.
Ok, Randy, you be the CEO for a second. You only have "X" amount of money. You can pay the electricity bill or pay your workers, but there isn't enough money to do both.
Sure, fine, bad decisions were made in the past and that's obvious by the financial situation now.
But NOW what do you do? You can't get in a magical time machine and undo the previous mistakes. You can either pay your power bill, or pay your workers.
What's your decision?
The amount of money that CEOs typically get should be enough to pay for someone who is capable of thinking and planning far enough ahead to avoid falling $200,000 behind on their utility bill.
Its a pretty sure bet that O'Sullivan wouldn't waive that kind of money if the situation was reversed. The city is right to refuse to waive the money. Sauce for the gander and all that.
Randy, your good at this investigative reporting why don't you check into this new CEO's track record an give us big O workers some insight wheather to jump ship or hang in there. when you have 20+ years in and 4 weeks vacation and see how they scrwed up the last few years its hard to take.
I finally have to give you credit for a story with less of a slam of the company. Like most stories, there will be some that thrive on looking for someone else to blame the problem on. The city was approached with one option to help the company, nothing wrong with trying. As far as any employee that is not willing to accept the (hopefully) short term pay reduction to help OUR company, let them go find a job that will pay the same, even after the reduction. While some may be able to do this, most will not, without having to either relocate or drive longer distances for these wages (myself included). While I am not happy to adjust my budget, I do so in the hopes and expectations that we will become a solid employer for this area in the future. People may slam the new CEO, will you still be willing to throw praise out there if he does succeed in turning the company around? Not sure, but pretty sure you won't find anyone in the area that has the potential skills to pull this off and would do it for less. Again, thanks Randy for a little more fair and balanced story this time. I'll continue to keep you in my bookmarks.
I will never buy a car from Gilkey's again or hire Eric Jeffries or Tim Brooks to work on my house nor will I ever step foot in Berry Moore's. These people need to realize that everytime they stand around the lumber yard or sit a the Blue Top slamming O'Sullivan's for asking for help, you are slamming every employee that works there.
It was you, the coucilmen, that had the right to decide whether or not to vote yes or no. And that you did and that is where it should have ended.
This is going to be hard on a lot of families trying to make ends meet.
Just remember, You Reap what you Sew.
Everyone needs to know that Kelly Terry and Paul Britton stated time and time again that the 6.6 reduction was a seperate issue from the city rejecting the proposal. Granted the city should have helped out some but you would have seen a cut in pay somewhere down the road. Unfortunately most of the city agrees with the council.Things are not good but I see alot of negativity from Mr Turner. Maybe he could take a break from O'Sullivan and find another company to be obsessed with.
Randy,
Your article is kind of true, but left out the fact that they did say when they would pay it back......they said after 6 months.
The fact is there is a big hole in the roof and a back wall missing...which does run up the heating bill.
When I had a leak in my main water pipe, I got a reduction in my water bill.
The town did nothing to help and we will remember on election day.
Why try to make it hard on them and us? Seems to me they are trying and we're still working.
Thank you to the media for letting everyone in SW Mo. know that you can now get a good employee at 6.6% less than you could last week.
If O'S would pay their bills on time and not have to pay a $20,000 penalty then they might not have to reduce the employees wages. I don't know if there are others that charge penalties or not, but $20,000 is about what I made last year and they are pretty much just throwing it away. I know when I am late on a payment it is hard to catch up. There is so much foolish waste at O'S it is ridiculous. And now they are wanting all the departments to cut the heat back to 50-55 degrees. That would be cold in the middle of summer.
What a lot of people (those that don't work theres) don't realize is that the employees have lost more than 6.6 of their wages. When the family owned it the employees had a company picnic, a kids Christmas party, a Christmas bonus, their profit sharing and now the company's matching contribution to the 401 program. And when the Christmas party was over, the company would donate the gifts that weren't given out to the Good Samaritan Shop to give to the needy.
Since I am on a roll, the company has said that they have hire 200 workers for the plant. My question is why not give the office workers that were let go the option of going to the plant. Most of the long term office employees started out in the plant and probably would have loved going back out. Now they have no job & more than likely no insurance or a really higher rate insurance.
Most people (me included) live paycheck to paycheck and it is going to be really hard to make ends meet with the pay cut.
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