Workers start 6-week layoff at Bobcat

BISMARCK (AP) — Workers at North Dakota’s Bobcat plants have started a six-week layoff, the longest shutdown they can recall.

Bobcat says the shutdown at its plants in Bismarck and Gwinner, affecting about 2,000 workers, will last until Feb. 2, is to give dealers time to move inventory in the troubled economy. The company, a subsidiary of South Korea-based Doosan Infracore International, makes skid-steer loaders and other light construction equipment. Bobcat workers are eligible for unemployment benefits and about a week of paid vacation around the holidays.

Erin Pehl is going on her 12th year with the company, first as a welder then as an assembler. Her boyfriend, Stacy Pierson, also works there, she said, on another shift.

Bobcat has cut about 150 workers through voluntary severance packages and plans to start realigning shifts to fill those vacancies. Pehl worries she or Pierson might end up on the night shift with no time to see each other or their two children.

Pehl said production at the Bismarck plant had slowed dramatically compared to last winter but workers hoped the cutbacks would be minimal.

During the shutdown, some hourly workers will help maintain the machinery and most salaried workers will remain online to work with customers, Bobcat spokeswoman Nikki Bruce said.

Pehl said she and Pierson explained to their children that they will get only one present each this year, and maybe some smaller things if they can afford it.

“We’re lucky that they have really great grandparents,” she said.

Their family nights are more thrifty. They rarely eat out, she said. They have stringent rules to save electricity and water: Lights off when not in use, and a 10-minute shower limit for the children.

“Everything is in the back of your mind, as far as financials go,” Pehl said.

Jeremy Bauer, president of the Bismarck United Steelworkers Union Local 566 and a worker at the Bismarck plant, said the union is working with the company on shift alignments. He said there should be enough work to avoid further cuts.

“That’s my hope, that we don’t have to see any more layoffs when we come back,” Bauer said.

Tags: melroe, gwinner, bobcat, shutdown, ecomomy