The La-Z-Boy shock

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It was Black Wednesday for Tremonton. The economic storm clouds were created by La-Z-Boy announcing it would shutter its 29-year-old manufacturing facility in the town of about 6,000.

That means 630 jobs will be lost, leaving families and their elected city and county leaders wondering how they'll respond. It's a devastating blow.

Ironically, if company executives are to be believed, it was the Top of Utah's strong job market that at least contributed to the furniture plant's closure. (Operations are expected to cease sometime this summer.) La-Z-Boy spokeswoman Kathy Liebmann told the Standard's reporter Jeff DeMoss the plant is inefficient due to the high employee turnover: "When there's a constant need to hire and train new people, it creates inefficiency."

Tremonton Mayor Max Weese confirmed as much to DeMoss when he explained his own and nearby cities, given such low unemployment, are struggling to provide enough workers to meet demand. "We've got to get some people moving to our part of the state," he told our reporter. "That's all there is to it."

Perhaps that will bode well for those thrown out of work by La-Z-Boy, though it remains to be seen whether those jobs will pay anywhere near as well as the furniture-making jobs have. There is a new Procter & Gamble plant coming online in Box Elder County, but it won't be up and running until 2009 or 2010; and it's unknown how soon employment levels there would rise to the 600-job range.

The other aspect of the La-Z-Boy plants closing that really stings is the plan by company executives to move lots of the jobs to Mexico, as well as five other plants in the United States. While our work force is diminished, those locations will be bolstered. That's the way it works, perhaps, but it's still irritating.

True, La-Z-Boy has been a valued member of the business community since its Tremonton plant opened in 1979, at one time employing slightly more than 1,000 people. But this relatively sudden closure is a blow to the city, county and the whole Top of Utah. We hope the resume workshops and other services La-Z-Boy says it will offer the laid-off employees are of value and help these people rebuild their financial lives.

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