Accepting buyouts
Number of Hallmark Cards Inc. employees accepting job buyouts, and number of employees at U.S. sites with eligible employees:
• Lawrence production center: 107 of 700 employees, or 15.3 percent.
• Leavenworth production center, 52 of 400, or 13 percent.
• Topeka production center, 96 of 680, or 14.1 percent.
• Liberty, Mo., distribution center, 74 of 960, or 7.7 percent.
• Enfield, Conn., distribution center, 49 of 800, or 6.1 percent.
• Center, Texas, fixtures center, five of 79, or 6.3 percent.
• Metamore, Ill., fixtures center, eight of 157, or 5.1 percent.
• Kansas City, Mo., operations division, 34 of 675, or 5 percent.
• Total: 425 of 4,451, or 9.5 percent.
More than 100 employees of Hallmark Cards Inc. in Lawrence have agreed to accept buyouts and leave the company, as Hallmark seeks to reduce its U.S. workforce.
Since the company started offering buyouts in April, 107 of the 700 employees at the company’s Lawrence production center have accepted voluntary severance offers, said Julie O’Dell, a Hallmark spokeswoman. Some employees already have left, while others will work through June 30.
The buyouts represent 15.3 percent of employees at the plant at 101 McDonald Drive — a reduction rate about twice as high as the planned 6 percent to 8 percent cut that had been announced in April for Hallmark’s U.S. personal expressions business.
Employees also were offered buyouts at Hallmark’s production centers in Topeka and Leavenworth; two distribution centers; two fixture operations; plus some operations employees in Kansas City, Mo.
Among 4,451 employees at sites with workers eligible for buyouts, 425 accepted — a rate of about 9.5 percent.
“This was just one step of the workforce reduction initiative that we announced in April, O’Dell said Thursday. “All of our locations — in Lawrence and Topeka and everywhere else — are looking at more potential reductions that may occur between now and October. That’s part of the broad initiative announced back in April.”
In April, Hallmark had said that the total cuts would amount to 550 to 750 of its 9,200 full-time U.S. employees within six months, a move to address decreased consumer spending as the economy continues to struggle. At the time, the company expected 350 to 450 employees to take the buyouts, which were to include severance pay and transition assistance.
“We’re pleased we were able to offer the employees a chance to make the decisions on their own, and what they’d want to do going forward,” O’Dell said Thursday.
Hallmark also announced in April that the overall job cuts would include employees at corporate headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., where about 4,000 people work; and in field operations. Excluded from the April announcement were employees at Hallmark subsidiaries: Crown Center, Crayola, DaySpring, Sunrise Greetings and William Arthur.
In Lawrence, Hallmark employees make Shoebox and other greeting cards, plus ribbons, stickers and other products. The plant had 800 employees at this point last year, 900 in 2001 and 1,000 or more throughout much of the 1990s.
The Lawrence plant opened in 1958 and covers 650,000 square feet. In 2005, it produced 530 million cards.
Comments
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srj (anonymous) says…
Very interesting that the Kansas plants had the highest buyout rates. Does they mean they sew the writing on the wall, or something else?
Machiavelli_mania (anonymous) says…
Nice to see the company get knocked from their pedestal. I have been boycotting them for years and years now, since brainless baby Bush Jr. made a presence on the national scene.
As for the workers and jobs lost, I was under the impression that it was hard to get a job at Hallmark if you or someone you know weren't somehow on the "inside" of the company.
Closed systems suffer entropy, as we now see with Hallmark.
cowboy (anonymous) says…
How much work are they producing out of the country now ?
Hoots (anonymous) says…
Machiavelli_mania...Do you really take so much pleasure from the demise of others? If so you are a sad person for sure. I would rather people do well and wish them so. Sorry your life is so sad that you want others to fail. Others failures effect all of us in a negative way.
average (anonymous) says…
srj -
Most likely a couple of factors. The plants outside of Kansas are newer and likely don't have quite as many late-50s/early-60s workers to buy out as the Kansas ones. Also, your buyout, whatever retirement, and Social Security check go a lot further in a cheap-to-live state like Kansas, so accepting the buyout at 60 isn't as painful.
Godot (anonymous) says…
I personally boycott Google, Nebraska Furniture Mart, BOA, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Dreamworks, abc, cbs, nbc, npr, and any product or service made by or attributed to a union because of their financial and/or media support that contributed to the assencion of the BHO oligarchy.
I will not purchase any vehicle made by the new GM or the new Chrysler because the new companies were born of Obama's unconstitutional acts. I will not willingly participate in treason.
I decry the desecration of our constitution by Obama, and I will resist by refusing to support, with my few discretionary dollars, the organizations and businesses that are on the Obama team.
inklines (anonymous) says…
Godot, Not sure what that has to do with Hallmark. They are non-union and privately/ family owned.
wysiwyg69 (anonymous) says…
If I could only predict the stock market like I have done on Hallmarks future I would be rich,. I still predict only one of the three plants remaining, will be open in six. years
Keith (anonymous) says…
Yes, the inside speculation is on Topeka being the next to go, followed by Leavenworth, leaving only Lawrence to produce the short runs and quick turnarounds that can't be parceled out to China. Even that won't keep them around forever, young folks these days just don't send cards.