by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Last year, just before Christmas, Tyson Foods announced it was closing the doors on its Jacksonville plant. Within 60 days, almost 600 people of varying skill and education levels stood to lose their jobs.
Enter the First Coast Manufacturers Association. In losing Tyson, which will permanently close within about a month, the area didn’t just lose 600 jobs, the FCMA also lost a member. However, at almost 300 strong, the FCMA, led by president Lad Daniels, is working to absorb all 600 former Tyson employees. Logic says that if every member of the FCMA hired two Tyson people, all 600 would have new jobs rather quickly.
Daniels, who is also City Council vice president, said it just isn’t that easy.
“There are two things that affect that,” explained Daniels. “One, some of the companies are highly specialized. When Durango [paper plant] in South Georgia closed, some of them got jobs with US Gypsum, Rayonier or another paper company that could use their skills. Two, is there immediate job availability with the companies? Is there turnover? Are they expanding?”
While it’s simply not feasible to ask each member of the FCMA to hire a few new people, several companies have hired former Tyson employees including Ryan Foods, Command Construction Group and CF Gomma just to name a few. According to Daniels, all of these companies are currently growing and hiring, some faster than others.
“Command is going through a huge expansion. They expect to go from 50 to 500 employees throughout the year,” said Daniels, adding the FCMA is also in the process of trying to find someone to take over the Tyson facility. “It’s flexible enough that it doesn’t necessarily have to be poultry. It could be meat processing or any number of other things. It’s safe to say it would be food processing. I’m not sure how much luck we’ll have.”
Although all of the companies in the FCMA are being asked to consider former Tyson employees for positions, no one is being pressured to hire anyone specifically.
“We will lend a hand, but we are always going to hire the most qualified person for the job,” said Sabina Corini, head of human resources at Colomer USA.
Daniels has a short-term goal of helping all 600 laid off employees find jobs within the next six months. Looking down the road, Daniels is also determined to see that if, and when, massive layoffs occur again, the suddenly jobless work force is capable of finding work on their own. Daniels is concerned that too many workers between 25 and 45 years of age have limited job skills, virtually no computer skills and, most importantly, aren’t being trained in anything outside of their mostly manual labor duties.
Those factors, when taken together, will make it tough to help find work for all 600 people.
“It’s not that impossible,” said Daniels, “but it shows us that down the road, we need to do something to increase the skills of those workers. Many of them have not completed high school, they have limited computer skills and they are not getting the training and tools they need to stay competitive in the work force.
“We are not competing with the businesses in Green Cove Springs or Palatka. We’re competing with the businesses in Singapore or Hamburg [Germany].
“What we are constantly impressing upon them [FCMA members] is constant training. Standard operating procedure in America today is constant training. I bet Maxwell House devotes two to three weeks of training to its employees every year.”
Daniels said he urges FCMA members to establish and constantly update training sessions for their employees. He also pointed out that while Tyson is laying off 600 people, it’s no reason to push the panic button over the local manufacturing industry.
“We have 1,500 small, manufacturing businesses in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia,” said Daniels. “Less than 100 of them employ less than 100 people. That’s a total work force of about 45,000.”