evince
Truthmatters
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/cookie.factory.reopens/index.html
ASHLAND, Ohio (CNN) -- An Ohio bakery shut down in October is bustling again, with 60 eager employees who had expected a Christmas on the unemployment rolls.
Cookie production has resumed and some workers are back on the job at the Archway factory in Ashland, Ohio.
1 of 4 Some 300 workers lost their jobs when the Archway cookie factory in Ashland, Ohio, was suddenly closed by the private equity firm that owned it. The workers also were left without benefits like health insurance.
But then Lance Inc., a Charlotte, North Carolina-based snack food company, purchased Archway at a bankruptcy auction. And last week 60 workers were asked to return immediately, with perhaps more coming back in the months ahead.
Kathy Sexton, a worker at the bakery, had been preparing her children for a very modest holiday. Watch the holiday brighten for workers »
"They said they understood," Sexton recalls. "They said, 'That's all right, Mom.' You always want to give them more, but ... I didn't think I would be able to."
Now she can.
Tiny Ashland has been struggling. Ohio has lost 200,000 jobs over the past eight years. The recent presidential campaign saw both candidates visiting frequently.
The outlook in Ashland became especially bleak when the Archway plant closed. Workers at the bakery said they felt betrayed when Archway at first said there would be more work in a day or two, but then changed the locks.
Rita Devan remembers.
"They just kept taking and taking until there was nothing left to take," Devan says, "and they didn't care that they were putting 300 people out of work."
Things are different now.
When it promised to reopen the bakery, Lance gave all 300 former Archway workers a $1,500 prepaid debit card.
ASHLAND, Ohio (CNN) -- An Ohio bakery shut down in October is bustling again, with 60 eager employees who had expected a Christmas on the unemployment rolls.
Cookie production has resumed and some workers are back on the job at the Archway factory in Ashland, Ohio.
1 of 4 Some 300 workers lost their jobs when the Archway cookie factory in Ashland, Ohio, was suddenly closed by the private equity firm that owned it. The workers also were left without benefits like health insurance.
But then Lance Inc., a Charlotte, North Carolina-based snack food company, purchased Archway at a bankruptcy auction. And last week 60 workers were asked to return immediately, with perhaps more coming back in the months ahead.
Kathy Sexton, a worker at the bakery, had been preparing her children for a very modest holiday. Watch the holiday brighten for workers »
"They said they understood," Sexton recalls. "They said, 'That's all right, Mom.' You always want to give them more, but ... I didn't think I would be able to."
Now she can.
Tiny Ashland has been struggling. Ohio has lost 200,000 jobs over the past eight years. The recent presidential campaign saw both candidates visiting frequently.
The outlook in Ashland became especially bleak when the Archway plant closed. Workers at the bakery said they felt betrayed when Archway at first said there would be more work in a day or two, but then changed the locks.
Rita Devan remembers.
"They just kept taking and taking until there was nothing left to take," Devan says, "and they didn't care that they were putting 300 people out of work."
Things are different now.
When it promised to reopen the bakery, Lance gave all 300 former Archway workers a $1,500 prepaid debit card.
