Bedding Maker WestPoint Stevens Will Close Factory, Cut 300 Jobs

[hatrack]

"WestPoint Stevens Inc., the bankrupt maker of Ralph Lauren Home, Martha Stewart and Joe Boxer bedding and bath products, will close a factory in Alabama and cut 300 jobs.

Some employees of the Lanier Plant in Valley, Ala., will be offered jobs at other factories, WestPoint said. The plant will close early next year.

EDIT

ICG Communications Inc. of Englewood, Colo., will eliminate 100 jobs, or nearly 10 percent of its work force, by year's end and may sell some assets after ending a lucrative contract with Qwest Communications International Inc. Most of the layoffs will come in Colorado, where ICG employs about 700 of its 975 workers."

EDIT/END

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[BJ]

1. Wonder why WestPoint Stevens is bankrupt?

Couldn't have anything to do with upper level management's extravagant lifle-style? Maximizing dividend profits at the expense of quality of actual product? Selling off U.S. assets, reorganizing under another corporate name and setting up sweatshops in Asia to maximize stock dividends?

But ya know, I'll just wager that out of those 300 workers lay-off in Alabama a majority voted Republican because that party "stands for traditional American family-values."

[saigon68]

2. Children will work in ASIA for 30 cents an hour.

Some I hear in Bagladesh will workfor even less.

You can't compete with wages and working conditions like that.

No Workers comp, overtime, no safety rules and no benefits---- health etc.

[Benhurst]

3. I'm sure the Compassionate Conservative will take care of

each and every one of them.