Kimberly-Clark closure: £30m Government funding will help ease redundancy pain at Barton plant

“I just thought I'd share this with you from a colleague, who like me isn't a manager!

"After hearing the devastating news at work this week it really gladdened my heart to see how the guys handled themselves. The disbelief was evident in every face and for a brief moment the heads went down. Once thoughts were gathered, pertinent questions were put to management who answered as truthfully as they could. It made me proud to be part of such a professional and caring team. You could see in the faces of the guys that this wasn't going to be beat them; we'd risen to every challenge in the past and would do so again and again. Hard decisions were going to have to be made, tough choices at every step.
So it came to pass that the proud men (and women) of KC Barton took that first step and went forward as they always have done with great dignity and pride that only the British know how to display and went to the pub and got absolutely **** faced and had one helluva a great night. The following morning wasn't too clever though………"”

“I am with you smokenbelch they were a good company to work for in the past but they were always under the yoke of the US management and the local management always promised corporate things that were pie in the sky”

“@juggernaut
whilst I will acknowledge that KC was (in days gone by) a good firm to work for and its a good bunch of people, (like you my wife has been there for 15yrs),I'm sorry the utopian image you are portraying can only come from someone who is in management.
How can you run a plant for 20yrs and it not make any money? (apparently).......ahhh, that'll be gross mismanagement by people who dont have the skills to be in the managerial positions they got put in.
During your eulogy you dont seem to mention the spectre of redundency rearing its head numerous times over the last few yrs,(and some those who went only getting statutory packages) people having endless sleepless nights wondering if they'll have a job the following month, (I vividly remember 2 or 3 yrs ago my wife getting a letter telling her her job was under threat, only to then get a letter 24hrs before her meeting with HR saying they'd changed their minds due to improving market conditions.....how can you treat people like that?) certain people (like has been said already) getting promoted to positions way above their abilities that have landed the plant in the mire its in.
The freezing of pension contributions, removal of perks (when was the last summer ball, or family open day?)
Add to that (and this is only from our personal experience) my wife getting turned over TWICE whilst off during pregnancy and maternity leave, being told that her old role had been filled by someone else, and if she didnt accept another position on less money there would be no job for her......like I say, this happened to us not once, but twice!!!!!
Ask yourself this: how come Pampers can seem to sell in bucketloads? (they use the same raw materials surely) how come P&G aren't pulling out of nappy production?....ahhh, that'll be because they have competent management in place with a clear product plan.
They cant even get it right when the plant will shut,(and if you do in fact work for KC, you cannot deny this) they were told verbally it will cease production in March, yet all the paperwork the wife has brought home says production will cease at the end of the 2nd quarter next yr....which is either June.....(or if they're working to the fiscal year) September
See? the managment (including top management in Texas) are that incompetent they don't even know when its closing.
Please dont harp on about safety, ALL companies have a duty of care these days to ensure your safety at work....its a given, I work on a COMAH top tier site on the bank, trust me, I know all about safety and what a company has to do to ensure you go home again.
Still, I hope your rosey memories of the plant will pay your bills, mortgage and feed your kids”

“to all KC employee's ENSURE you've got a letter personally addressed to you from KC advising of this redundancy/future loss of employment, as employers are a ****** for 'saying, not putting in writing' such words, as then if say 100 get another job, that's 100 redundancies saved from a loss making plant.”

“They wil always go where the labour is cheaper china. Of course it will eventually have to stop. Manufacturers always have to have cheap labour or they go under.But then if you have an unemployed population. The customers dry up. The job loss in The USA is largely caused by manufacturing going to China. There are great promises being made by Obama, & Romney to bring jobs back. It maybe easier said than done.”

“I work at KC, well for the time being anyway, and the an*****ment came as a big shock to us all! I have been there for over 15 years and I can say that it has been an excellent place to work. The company have looked after the associates in every way they could, in particular safety. The company went above and beyond to ensure there people weren't put at risk from any injury, no matter how small and despite having world class safety records, we still achieved all the targets and goals set by the Americans who's safety standards were no way near as good as ours. It made me feel comfortable in the knowledge that my welfare was more important than productivity.

Huggies are still being advertised, anyone who watches You've been framed will know that, everyone knows Huggies as a brand and I am sure that lack of advertising had nothing to do with poor sales. It was always going to be difficult to compete with Proctor and Gamble who already had a large share of the market before Huggies were introduced 20 years ago. The biggest winner was the consumer, a bag of Pampers cost £6.95 23 years ago, I'm not sure what they cost now, but I think they are cheaper than that now! The cost of raw materials has increased drastically over the years and making nappies just wasn't profitable. Thats why I don't think Chinese made nappies will end up in Europe, the problem is they just aren't selling, that's why they are pulling out.

Due to the low turnover rate of employees, most of us have worked with the same people for at least 15 years, we have built up friendships and shared in each others joys and heartaches, we have seen each others children grow up and start their own lives and been through good times and bad at the mill together.

The future isn't certain for any of us, but we did our best and we can pride in what we achieved with ever increasing challenges and changing objectives.”

“Just found this on the KC website. Probably explains it all

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation began doing business in China in 1994. Now, Kimberly-Clark China has three manufacturing facilities in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai, producing and selling several of our well-known brands such as Kotex, Huggies, Kleenex, and Depend. While there, Kimberly-Clark is devoted to maintaining a long-term development strategy in China.”

“Totally agree with Cynicalsam. I too worked at the plant for over 5yrs and you could see this was going to happen sooner rather than later. I am pleased i left under my own steam rather than being pushed.
I do feel sorry for the shopfloor operators but have nothing but contempt for the Plant managers and their underlings that i worked under. They were forever promising to cut costs and make profits to the US head office when it was known even by the plebs on the machines we were doing it with both arms tied behind your back. A lot of equipment and consumables were supplied only from the USA which made being competitive with their rivals a backward step before the first nappy or Diaper was ever made.
Production went way up and to say that the plant never made a profit is absolute bunkem.
What will KC be doing with the Diaper machines? Will they be scrapping them or sending them abroad......we will have to wait for the chinese whispers.
Another example of a foreign company not giving a monkey about their UK staff.
Profits before People
pmrbh11yellow”

“Well said grimoldie. I've never quite got my head around the way major organisations, who are turning very healthy profits, have this desire for more and more money. For what? Investment in new facilities? Creating more jobs? No. Basically to increase share value, pay out larger dividends and attract more investment. But if they are making loads of money, why do they want to attract outside investment? I don't get it.

At the end of the day they are making their own customers poorer, making it so they can't spend as much money on the vast array of products these giant companies produce.

It's always the average man or women who get hit the hardest. Years of bad decisions, bad management, poorly thought out investments, and who pays the price? The CEO? The top level management? Unfortunately not. It's the people on the shop floor that ultimately pay the price. This country is all wrong. The previous two governments let the banks play loose and fast with immoral practices, the government have to bail them out, and then to pay for it they cut services and axe jobs that are the lifeblood of the lower and middle classes.”

“CynicalSam and Smokebelch.

It sounds a lot like what happened at Tioxide where I worked.

American owners throwing away there throw away cards when times get tough.

A lot of what you guys said exactly mirrors events that went on in our factory and yes the redundancy package was very good being in a non contributory final salary scheme.It still is a hammer blow when it finally happens and you think you have a job for life and live accordingly.

I feel more for the younger ones without the service and the local shops etc that rely on the factory workers spending there income locally.

I'm afraid in the grand scheme of things some mega rich Millionaires in the states are sat at a table and just cross your name off their list of company's, maybe due to location and labour prices. IE, (cheep labour abroad) or just streamlining I don't know and you probably never will know why exactly they have taken this choice.

Maybe out job climate is wrong (politicians and bankers fault there) I wish I knew the answers.

All I can say to those to young to enjoy the redundancy packages is I hope you find PROPER jobs and are able to live as you do now.”