Farmland Industries Inc. cut another 20 union jobs Thursday from its fertilizer plant in Lawrence, and announced that layoffs were on the way for 34 administrative and managerial employees at the plant.
The bad news arrived early Thursday morning at the 500-acre site at the southeastern edge of town, which lost 68 union employees during a layoff in May. The plant has been idle since May 1 because of an industrywide oversupply of fertilizer and depressed demand from farmers.
"It was a shock to everybody," said Don Barber, a senior utility operator who is one of five union employees staying on the job. "We were all praying that the plant might get to where it could start up again, but the economy won't let us do it.
"I hope it does. There are a lot of young men out there who need a job right now."
Kansas City, Mo.-based Farmland said it would offer laid-off employees other jobs within the cooperative system, such as in food-processing plants in Dodge City and Wichita or at its refinery in Coffeyville. Severance packages will be dependent on negotiations with the employees' union.
Others being offered jobs are the 34 administrative and managerial employees who will be laid off beginning Jan. 31, with the cuts to be completed by March 1, officials said.
In all, 12 employees will be left to handle regulatory, environmental and minimal maintenance work at Farmland's oldest fertilizer plant, which at one time was the co-op's top producer of certain fertilizers but remains its most expensive to operate.
Farmland announced Thursday that the plant was on "standby" status, thus freeing up employees to seek new jobs within the cooperative or accept severance packages and find work elsewhere.
"The real goal is to let people get on to making an intelligent choice about what they want to do, rather than holding out hope that we'd be restarting in the next few months," said Bob Honse, Farmland's president and chief executive officer.
Honse, a Lawrence resident and former manager of the plant, said he didn't know when the nitrogen fertilizer plant would reopen. But keeping it on standby will give the co-op flexibility to resume operations within 30 days, should troublesome economic conditions ease.
The only question is when.
"Obviously, we think it will reopen," Honse said.
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