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United States News Title: Bunge to cut 100 wokers Bunge to cut 100 workers BY MIKE HELENTHAL Commercial-News DANVILLE — What’s sure is Danville’s Bunge plant will shed 100 jobs as the company closes its soybean-processing operations April 23. What remains to be seen is which of the plant’s almost 300 employees will lose their jobs. “We have to work with the union on (identifying) the hourly employees,” said Deb Sidell, spokeswoman for St. Louis-based Bunge North America. She said the employee cuts were not simple layoffs and were being made in participation of a “permanent shutdown” of the soybean division. “This doesn’t come easy because we’ve been a part of the Danville community for a long time,” she said. Officials for PACE Local 6-0972 said they are reserving comment until they are provided more information from company leaders. Corporate officials blame the general state of the soybean market, which they say has become over-saturated with producers. The Danville plant was more at risk for staff cuts due to added transportation costs associated with it, Sidell explained. “There’s just too much processing,” she said. “Really, this is related to processing capacity trouble throughout the United States.” Bunge, which processes 120,000 bushels of soybeans a day, will continue accepting soybeans and corn from local farmers and serve as an elevator. No changes have been announced in the corn-milling division and officials said they would honor all current soybean contracts. Bunge’s production process crushes soybeans to meal for making an animal feedstock. It also sells the byproduct oil. Alicia Clancy, spokeswoman for neighboring Blackhawk Biofuels, which has a supply contract with Bunge, said the change in Bunge operations will not affect Blackhawk. “We have a procurement team that seeks out (oil suppliers),” she said. “Blackhawk has an advantage in that they can use multiple feed stocks. We will continue to produce biodiesel” Thanks to upgrades made last year, Blackhawk can even turn animal fat into biofuel, giving operators purchasing options beyond soybean oil alone. But Blackhawk’s production levels, along with other biodiesel manufacturers across the country, have also gone down as the industry awaits the extension of a $1 tax credit they say is needed to make it comparable in price to standard fuels. Clancy, who declined to discuss specific production levels, said the facility had purchased “some product” from Bunge. Sidell said national factors were the largest consideration in the shutdown, though the fact Blackhawk was not running at full capacity was a “small factor.” She said the company would be bringing in teams to help severed employees through the unemployment process and would likely work with Vermilion Advantage as far as utilizing local retraining and job-search services. “Right now we’re still notifying all of these employees,” said Sidell, “so it’s a little too soon for that. Certainly, we’ll be working with (Vermilion Advantage).” Vicki Haugen, Vermilion Advantage president, said the organization would be discussing the matter with Bunge officials in the near future, but agreed with Sidell that job-training conversations were premature until the dust settles. “We’re hoping to meet with some of their folks later this week,” Haugen said. She said the process would include identifying affected employees’ skill sets, and there might be the possibility of matching many of them with several companies currently seeking high-tech employees. Thyssen-Krupp Presta recently announced it was having difficulty filling floor-production positions with qualified employees. Other companies have expressed the same concerns over filling high-tech jobs due to an under-qualified local workforce.
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