BY DANIEL VICTOR
Of The Patriot-News
Michael Morgan said The Hershey Co.’s retirement package isn’t good enough.
Theresa Whitaker said she doesn’t see any choice but to take it.
Doug Geyer would be thrilled if he were eligible.
And Scott Ail is convinced he’s out of a job.
Workers, residents and politicians have pressed The Hershey Co. for the number of local job cuts since realignment plans were announced in February. Now that they know that 600 to 650 positions will be cut, the difficult decisions begin for the candymaking workers.
Whitaker, 52, plans to unenthusiastically take the deal for early retirement. It hurts to leave, she said, but she has to look out for her children.
“We don’t want to, but we don’t really have a choice,” said Whitaker, who works in molding. “If we don’t take it and it comes up again, it’s going to be worse.”
Her friend, Alice Jones-Pressley, said she’d love to be eligible for the deal.
The Harrisburg resident has worked in the plant since she was 18. She is now 46. So even though she was hired in the same year as Whitaker, she’s left out of the offer for early retirement.
She believes the company isn’t done downsizing. “The plant is a dinosaur,” she said, suggesting further cuts are likely in the 102-year-old main plant.
“There’s a lot of upset people right now,” she said. “A lot of anger, a lot of tears.”
At 47, Geyer, of Hummelstown, is missing the cut for a retirement package. He has worked in shipping for 29 years, but he wonders whether the plant will be shut in the coming years. “It’s just not cost-efficient,” he said.
Though much of his family, including his father, has worked at the plant, he’s looking for other jobs, unsure whether he’ll be able to retire with the company or what he might lose next. He said he would have taken a buyout if he had the opportunity.
“I always wanted to be younger,” he said. “For the first time, I’m too young.”
Morgan, 50, said he plans to reject the company’s offer and stay for 10 years. A truck driver for 29 years, he said an additional four years offered by the company aren’t enough.
“That’s just not going to cut it,” he said.
Ail, 42, has 13 years at the company, so “I’m toast,” he said. If he can, he’ll take voluntary severance, which would give him two weeks of pay for each of his 13 years. Voluntary severance will be offered only if enough workers eligible for the early retirement plan don’t take it.
If he were involuntarily let go — which he believes could happen — he’d get one week of pay for each year.
“It’s clear. Either way I’m out the door,” he said.
Ail, who makes syrup, went to a union meeting yesterday that explained his options, and he said he believes the union will approve the contract when it votes Thursday or Friday.
“I’ll just get a commercial driver’s license and drive somewhere,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of options around here.”
Derry Twp. Supervisor August “Skip” Memmi said elected officials can craft plans to help workers find jobs now that the officials know how many will be cut. Several local officials had been pressing the company for a number.
“I believe that the community as a whole has always been questioning what the impact was going to be,” Memmi said. “This number allows them to understand that impact a little better and should allow them to understand that there will be chocolate-making in Derry Twp. for the foreseeable future.”
Some workers are being proactive about their future.
Lebanon County Commissioner Bill Carpenter said he got a phone call from a Hershey employee who already is looking for a job. The employee, in his 50s, has about 25 years with the company and thinks he probably will be eligible for some type of retirement incentive, Carpenter said.
“He said he won’t be able to live on that and might need another job — maybe not as good — but something to supplement,” he said.
Carpenter said a sufficient number of “supplemental” jobs are available in the area.
“It’s the jobs like at Hershey that aren’t around. That’s a career job,” Carpenter said. “Hopefully, they will give a good enough buyout that they can live with that and do some sort of supplemental job and between the two be able to get by.”
Carpenter called the announcement “better news.”
“I wouldn’t say good news, but it’s better than we originally thought, that they might close a plant,” he said. “That would have been devastating.”
Staff writer Barbara Miller contributed to this report.