Days darken in River City

Among companies staggered by a recession’s withering blows is Invista, which operates from a Waynesboro plant that has stood on the shores of the South River since 1929, an earlier bleak year. More than 130 contract workers at Invista will be laid off by the end of the year, on top of 70 layoffs in the fall, the total accounting for almost 20 percent of the plant’s work force. And the skies darken.

Invista’s parent company, Koch Industries, has seen earnings plummet by 50 percent. Layoffs have hit other Invista sites. A plant in Canada is preparing to shut down, and the work force at another in Delaware has been slashed by 80 percent.

All of this has helped fuel the kind of speculation that is perpetual and rampant in this town, that Invista will vanish in the night, removing from the city’s economy and tax rolls Waynesboro’s largest employer and last vestige of industrial vibrancy. Whether that day arrives soon, later or never, the foreboding prevails, augmented by an economy in tatters and still unraveling.

Contrasts in these lightless days are increasingly rare, but Invista’s union workers provide some, especially when juxtaposed with Detroit. The Big Three automakers trudge on wounded feet to the Capitol with outstretched hands, seeking a $34 billion bailout after having fired rounds of crippling shots into their insteps. Total average compensation for Big Three workers last year hovered near $75 an hour, compared to $48 an hour for Toyota laborers. If General Motors tumbles into the abyss at the end of the year, the company and its workers will have supplied the final shove.

The same cannot be said of Invista’s union employees. Nowhere do management and employees concur at every turn, nor do they at Invista. But the relationship between the company and its union workers, based on the accounts of people on both sides, is unique for its absence of meaningful – and typical – acrimony.

This was acutely evident during the spring City Council campaign when the union took the rare step of endorsing a bloc of conservative candidates. Why? Because that bloc opposed stormwater fees for Invista, which the company vigorously combated and the union feared would imperil the fibers maker’s position in Waynesboro. On other occasions, the union has made concessions to help bolster the company’s margins. Invariably, this has been done in quiet, without the ordinary blustering that accommodates collective bargaining.

In the end, none of it may suffice. Invista announced late last month that the company would shutter its Millhaven, Canada, plant. In Maydown, England, products and services contracts have been cut, and contract workers at Invista’s Victoria, Texas, plant have been laid off. So, too, have been 400 of 500 workers Invista’s Seaford, Del., facility.

Invista typically is tight-lipped, but Maydown Site Manager Pat Carroll illuminated the darkness in an interview with England’s Londonberry Sentinel: “It is a very challenging period for the industry, and that is certainly true of Invista. We are seeing reduced demand for our products.”

Koch feels the pain, too. The Kansas-based company recently shut down a chemical plant in Port Arthur, Texas. Executive Vice President David Koch last month told The Wall Street Journal that earnings had fallen by 50 percent this year.

Neither Invista nor Koch qualify as too big to fail. Like so many companies in America, they must carve out their own survival in a market turned cruel, and if they cannot, they will be left to fall. The companies might well weather the crisis, but not so all of their operations. More can be expected to go the way of Millhaven.

Whether that includes Waynesboro’s Invista site, the workers have done their part to help the facility prosper. We hope for their sake and the city’s that the effort was not in vain.