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Kennametal lays off 26 before plant's sale

Kennametal laid off 26 employees Thursday in an effort to "right size" the facility before its sale to a Chinese drill bit company.

Top-Eastern Drill Co. is purchasing a line of drill bits from Kennametal in addition to four facilities -- Evans among them. The sale is expected to close Tuesday, said Christina Reitano, Kennametal's corporate communication manager.

The layoffs involved personnel in production and management, she said.

Also, Top-Eastern Drill representatives were in the Evans plant Thursday to meet with employees, though they've not announced plans for the facility.

In other news

KIMBERLY-CLARK CORP. said Thursday that it plans to cut 1,600 jobs, or 3 percent of its global work force, as it slims down in the tough economy. The company plans to make the cuts primarily among salaried and nonproduction workers, and executives said the company doesn't plan to close any plants.

OIL PRICES JUMPED above $70 a barrel Thursday after the government said that the economy might be faring better than previously thought. Meanwhile, the national average gasoline price lost 0.9 cents to $2.667 a gallon.

RATES FOR 30-YEAR home loans edged up this week, remaining above record lows reached over the spring. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 5.42 percent.

Comments

dannyfordsux

I posted a comment before and Augusta Chronicle hid the story. Kennametal told all of us on Thursday that we had lost or jobs due to the manufacturing being moved to Clemson, S.C. They told the remaining employees that from July 1st foward we were contract employees and that were "on loan" from Kennametal to "Top Eastern". We were told after 60 days to 6 months all of us in manufacturing were out of a job. Some of us attempted to form a union and stop this about 2 years ago but Kennametal told us: " we will fire anyone attempting to assemble" and "if you assemble then Kennametal will shut the doors" I guess we should have formed the union anyway. Masters week we had an oil release of a large quanity of oil. The plant mananger told us not to reveal the amount of the spill to the POTW as we were not sure of the volume they later told the plant in a meeting that we only released "1 gallon". I personaly saw "many gallons" of oil floating thru the sewer. This is not new we have 3 oil systems 2 of them were built before the EPA standards were in place and do not have spill liners. The third system does we cannot account for all the oil lost in the plant. I challange the paper to check.

59Trumpet

I heard from a friend that works there the same thing and the plant was closing and moving to China.

Rose

scaredo tell all you know. Serves them right!

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