Production ends at Philip Morris USA’s N.C. plant
Bob Brown / Times-Dispatch
This machinery at Philip Morris’ Richmond plant was never as fast as the thousand-packs-per-minute equipment in North Carolina.
Published: July 30, 2009
Updated: July 30, 2009
As of this morning, Philip Morris USA's Richmond manufacturing plant is the only site where the company makes cigarettes.
The Henrico County-based tobacco company said yesterday that the last cigarettes -- specifically, Marlboros -- would come off the production line at its Cabarrus County, N.C., manufacturing plant at about 9 last night.
About 1,000 employees were working their last shifts at the plant near Charlotte yesterday. An additional 100 employees will continue to work there as the plant is decommissioned, which could take until late this year or early next year.
In June 2007, Philip Morris USA said it would close the North Carolina plant and move its production to Richmond in 2010. The decision came as its parent company, Altria Group Inc., made plans to spin off its international cigarette subsidiary as a separate company.
The spinoff, completed last year, eliminated the export market for the company's U.S. cigarette factories, which now supply only the slowly declining domestic market.
The company said 565 employees at the North Carolina plant accepted transfers to Richmond, and nearly all of them already have moved.
Altria said it had about 2,300 employees at its Richmond cigarette plant at the start of this year and about 5,400 overall in the Richmond area, but the company also acknowledged making significant job cuts from its local operations this year as it adjusts to a smaller cigarette market. The company has not confirmed a specific number of job cuts.
In May, the company said it would close the North Carolina plant by the end of July, months earlier than it had first announced, in part because of the ongoing erosion in cigarette shipments.
As some employees drove from the plant for the last time yesterday, they honked repeatedly and waved at each other.
Ramona Caudill, 55, of Concord, N.C., who worked at the plant as a packer for 27 years, said her shift was bittersweet. "There's been a lot of hugging today," Caudill said. Her last shift ended at 3 p.m.
"But we've had two years to get used to the idea so everyone has gotten their ducks in a row," said Caudill, who received $91,000 in severance and plans to retire.
A majority of the workers will receive severance packages, ranging from six to 20 months of pay. Caudill said the packages were generous. Her niece has worked for Philip Morris for four years but received a 41-week severance package, she said.
The North Carolina plant, on U.S. 29 in Concord, about 20 miles northeast of Charlotte, opened in 1982. At its peak production, it manufactured 155 billion cigarettes a year and employed 2,500 people. Its production volume was typically higher than the Richmond plant's, in part because the Cabarrus site had "super high speed" machinery that could produce 1,000 packs per minute, compared with 700 packs by machines used in Richmond, said Paige Magness, a company spokeswoman.
The faster machines are being moved to the Richmond plant, which is undergoing renovations. New tobacco-processing equipment is being installed; the basic infrastructure is being upgraded; and office areas, the fitness center and the cafeteria are being remodeled, Magness said.
The 2.5 million-square-foot North Carolina plant has been put up for sale, along with about 1 million square feet of distribution space and 1,500 acres of developable land around the plant. Magness said she could not comment on prospective buyers.
"The site is actively being marketed," she said. "We have certainly had a number of interested parties along the way."
Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or
.
Staff writer Karen Cimino Wilson of the Concord-Kannapolis Independent Tribune contributed to this report.
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Reader Reactions
Their “generous” package is nothing more than they are contractually obligated to do under their long term agreement. They have done NOTHING to their dedicated long term employees that have given their lives to this company. They have always done the “right thing” by their long term employees in the past until this time. We are only talking about another 38 people that has 27 or 28 years. If they can’t let them retire with the years they have, then they should have gotten an opportunity to transfer and finish their careers up in Richmond. Transfer younger workers and pull the rug out from under your long term employees is just wrong. All the while the top brass fattens up their bonus money and their retirement.
Why should any employee do anything extra when the company shows so little regard for their own people? They don’t care about anybody. Just how much money they can stuff into their own pockets. All the other stuff if for PR.
The employees aren’t the ones that did all the lying, but they are paying the price. The ones that did the deeds are not the ones paying the price. One day, they will have to answer to someone. I would hate to be in their shoes when they have to answer to god.
I believe they are setting up to take everything offshore. They will not stay in Richmond either. The CEOs lied to congress and the Master Settlement was nothing but a payoff. Funny how they put things in there for the farmers, but for the employees that have lost their jobs? Nothing. Look at all the good paying jobs we have run out of the country. When the lawyers get done, there won’t be anything left. Wait until they attack fast food and everything else people do that isn’t healthy. This is just the beginning.
But the CEOs will skim theirs off the top as they are ruining this country. Perhaps we need some laws to reign in CEO pay. They run their companies in the ground, get bailouts from the taxpayers, and reward themselves with Millions in Bonus money. The average Joe is overpaid in their eyes, but for some reason, they think they are worth all they get.
oneuser - That facility (or land) could probably be used for a number of things. In another town not too far from Concord, they demolished an old textile facility and are building a huge Biotech campus. It will easily be many times larger than the one next to the coliseum. I know that area is also heavily involved in building hybrid/electric vehicles, so that is probably an option. My point is that someone will come in and pick that facility for something better than what it was used for. I would be willing to be there be more layoffs at PM in a few years. The smart ones were those who took that generous “package” PM gave them.
I bought my last pack of PM cigarettes in March when the 62 cent per pack Obama tax was passed to pay for parasites children.
ddub28,
What kind of jobs would go to North Carolina? You don’t mean factory jobs because they have all gone overseas. Richmond is very lucky to have Philip Morris here. What could the Richmond plant be used for? Possibly a homeless shelter with NO TAX REVENUE for Richmond or Virginia.
Philip Morris had a lot of help putting people in the position of being layed off - anti tobacco lawyers who are busy sucking in the money and buying islands off the coast. Go check it out. And the communities these plants have supported will miss the millions in charitable contributions and financial support they generously gave while they were here. You reap what you sow. People are responsible for their own behaviors. I don’t see anyone suing liquor manufacturers but just wait, the greedy lawyers will be eyeballing you next.
What’s ironic about this situation, is that PM will end up selling this huge facility to someone that bring many more jobs to that area outside of Charlotte than the 500 some jobs that are being brought up here.
Phillip Morris are legalized drug dealers. Richmond is next to go down
Allot of Philip Morris problems came from the Master Tobacco Settlement. The government pressured and sued the tobacco industry into giving them money. How many businesses could remain profitable when money is being siphoned off by the government. Philip Morris has preformed well in an adverse market. Richmond has the best and most knowledgeable factory employees. It’s employees were omitted by the Master Tobacco Settlement. There was no provision in the Master Tobacco Settlement for the lost jobs and wages or the closure of factories in the US. I wonder how much longer the Richmond plant will remain profitable.If not I am sure it will close as well.
This is sad because this is a company that is claiming to turn over a new leaf and do the right things. When they announced this, they claimed everybody that wanted to transfer to Richmond, would get the opportunity. They spin that they offered all these jobs, but the sad reality is that there has been very few opportunities for hourly to come up here. I bet in reality, there has been just around 200 openings, not the 800 that they claimed they offered? Yes they count the ones that passed it up in their numbers.
No early retirement packages. They have always did the right thing by their long term employees in the past, but not this time. Left behind, are those that are just within 2 years of retirement, all the while, they have transferred younger workers with less time with the company. How is it doing the right thing to toss out someone that has given their life to this company with 27 or 28 years of service and transfer someone with just 10 years? OH,they will blame it all on the union, but this company writes ALL the contracts and gets what ever they want, how ever they want, when ever they want. It is all about fattening the managers at the top while screwing the average working employee at the bottom, this time out of the retirements that they have spent their lives working for.
So how is this supposed to motivate others to go above and beyond the call of duty when we know full well that the company thinks nothing about their employees? It doesn’t matter what you accomplish or what you do for them, or how much money you make for them. The only thing they look at is what you COST them. There is NO VALUE in anything, any employee does for Philip Morris. They don’t value long term dedicated service. If you come in the door with a good work ethic, they will find a way to take it from you.
They claim to be this “responsible"company that is “aligning with society”. It is the same old crap that their critics have been saying. Spin, Spin, Spin and lie and deceit. Even Ford Motor Company that has been loosing BILLIONS can do the right things by their employees. They have been buying their employees out and offering early retirement in recent years. But a company that had a net income of 1 Billion last quarter can’t find it in their heart to do the right thing by their employees, but I bet they find a way to reward those at the very top with millions in bonus.
So if Philip Morris ever wants to know why they have went from the most respected to the most despised, they should look in the mirror and see how they treat their employees. But to them, employees are just property that they can use as pawns any way they see fit. They rule by threat and intimidation.
They could do better and they know it. When you don’t respect your employees, they will not respect you. That is what happens when you quit promoting from within and put more value on having a sheep skin on the wall than personal experience. Top management is so far out of touch, it isn’t even funny.
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