Despite recent deep cuts to its corporate headquarters, Madison-based Oscar Mayer is adding positions to its production line, if only a few.
“We’re actually hiring” says Doug Leikness, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 538. So far only about a dozen have been brought on, but it’s an encouraging sign that meat processing will continue in Madison, even if corporate headquarters are eventually moved elsewhere.
On Aug. 12, Oscar Mayer’s parent company dropped a bombshell. The newly formed Kraft Heinz Co. announced that it is cutting 2,500 jobs in the United States and Canada. The company employs 46,600 worldwide. In what may prove to be only the first round of cuts expected through 2017, at least 165 white-collar jobs were axed at Madison’s corporate offices last week.
Oscar Mayer’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Jim Aehl, who worked for Oscar Mayer from 1970 to 1995 and previously headed the company’s public relations department, was saddened to learn of the cuts.
“With the downsizing of the Madison operations, going from over 4,000 employees when I was there to about 1,000 with the most recent reductions, my immediate reaction is one of sadness that there now are fewer opportunities for people in Madison to earn their living at this fine meat company,” Aehl says.
“[Oscar Mayer] still is a good-sized employer in town, and I can only hope that Heinz Kraft will continue to consider the plant as an important part of its total meat operations,” he says.
Mayor Paul Soglin pledged to work with the company, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and other agencies to place the laid-off workers in comparable positions.
“I am deeply concerned about the well-being of these employees and their families,” Soglin said in a statement.
Oscar Mayer is the largest manufacturer in Dane County. Sales of just its premade Lunchable meals are estimated to earn $1 billion a year.
As Isthmus reported on June 25, there is cause for concern that Oscar Mayer’s corporate headquarters may be shifted elsewhere.
The Kraft Heinz Co. released second-quarter earnings two days before the announcement of layoffs. Kraft’s net revenues had dropped by 4.9% and Heinz’s results were mixed. According to the official statement, the new company expects it will “generate aggressive, run-rate cost savings of $1.5 billion by the end of 2017, inclusive of savings from productivity and cost savings initiatives contemplated prior to the merger.”
The earnings report assured stockholders that “the Heinz brand and business will remain headquartered in Pittsburgh and the Kraft brand and business will remain headquartered in the Chicago area.”
According to the Associated Press, further cost-cutting measures were announced in a July 13 memo to Kraft Heinz employees. Included among the “provisional measures” were requests to print on both sides of paper and reuse office supplies such as binders and file folders.
