Mack Trucks to Lay Off 400 at Lehigh Valley Plant
Mack Trucks said Dec. 15 it will lay off about one-fifth of its Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, employees in late January, one of the largest local-job announcements from the heavy-duty truck manufacturer since it decided to move its headquarters from Allentown to North Carolina six years ago.
"Regretfully, based on the need to adjust production to meet the reduced demand in the market, we will unfortunately have to lay off about 400 people at Mack Lehigh Valley Operations," spokesman Christopher Heffner said.
Heffner said the company began notifying employees at its Lower Macungie Township plant at 8 a.m. Dec. 15.
But Ed Balukas, president of United Auto Workers Local 677, which represents the Mack workers, said some workers found out from news reports and not from the company.
"It's just a rotten way to find out you're getting laid off," said Balukas, who has been union president since 2007. He said affected employees will work their last day Jan. 22.
The layoffs do not come as a surprise, as the union said in a Nov. 2 letter to its members that a layoff was likely in the coming months due to an "anticipated daily build rate reduction." But, to some, the layoff of 400 — representing about 21% of Mack's current employment figure of 1,866 in the Lehigh Valley — was higher than expected.
"We thought it would be somewhere close to this, but we didn't think it would be this high," Balukas said.
While fluctuations in Mack's workforce are not uncommon because the company monitors the market and adjusts employment needs accordingly, the announcement Dec. 12 ranks among the largest layoffs from the company in recent years.
During the recession, low truck orders prompted Mack Trucks to reduce staff in Lower Macungie and launch a series of plant shutdowns. For example, Mack laid off 25 employees in May 2009 and held three weeklong shutdowns in April and May that year, which sent 425 workers to collect unemployment compensation.
