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Closing signals
end of sad saga
Closing signals
end of sad saga
Listen to this articleDear Editor:
It was both sad and interesting to read Rob Hovey’s article on the needless demise of Shorewood Packaging Corp.’s Pittsford operation (RBJ 9/15/95). This should not be taken as an isolated event, nor be taken as reflective of the employees who worked diligently there.
Instead, this marks the last chapter in an 11-year saga that began with the acquisition of Case-Hoyt Corp. by Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., and accelerated the following year with Case-Hoyt acquiring the Great Lakes Press group of companies. Without any exaggeration, these events will go down as the biggest fiasco in the history of commercial printing.
Thanks to the predatory practices of BCE, some gross mismanagement and other factors, the following companies have since disappeared from the Rochester economy: Great Lakes Press (at the time the area’s second-largest commercial printer); Fabrigraphics (a GLP creation that provided heat-transfer printing and converting to the textile industry); Rendoll Paper (the third-largest manufacturer of ice cream and frozen novelty folding cartons in the United States and the developer of the “Tuck-Tite” half-gallon square, now standard in the dairy industry); the aforementioned Shorewood operation in Pittsford (originally Case-Hoyt Packaging); and, were it not for some real last-minute heroics by Avanti Press of Miami, Case-Hoyt itself (though they did close their St. Paul facility). It also should be noted that expediency and a lack of forethought caused the closing of Case-Hoyt Atlanta, which could’ve been retooled into a dedicated Fabrigraphics plant.
Millions of dollars in lost sales, hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost wages, tens of thousands of dollars in lost tax revenue, families and careers upset, and jobs lost. Having been witness to most of this disaster, let me assure Mr. Hovey and you that the employees of these entities weren’t at fault. The employees (as in other such situations) have become pawns. Blunt and unfair? Perhaps. Otherwise, true.
So what can we learn from this? That bigger isn’t necessarily better, and no one wins in a merger. Some advice? If your company starts down that slippery slope, look down at the ground and recite the following: “Feet don’t fail me now.”
Unless you get an iron-clad guarantee, plan on leaving, ’cause no one wins in a merger.
–Jeff Goldblatt, Rochester
(Goldblatt served as novelty coordinator for Rendoll.)
