Sabreliner announces more layoffs

Sequestration hit close to home this week as Sabreliner Corporation, an aviation repair and maintenance facility with facilities in both Perry and Ste. Genevieve counties, announced to employees on Thursday another round of layoffs that have been plaguing the company since late last fall.

Management blames a lack of government contracts and cuts in federal defense spending as the reason for the layoffs.

The company’s workforce has been cut nearly in half, with roughly 180 members from the Teamster Local 600 being furloughed since November 2012, with additional layoffs coming from corporate of office positions. Layoffs have occurred every month since November according to David Bruckerhoff, Business Agent for the Teamster Local 600.

The most recent layoff left 80 people without work.

On March 8, notice from Sabreliner was sent to Randy Contrell, Manager of the State Dislocated Worker Unit,stating that within a two-week period on or beginning March 8, 80 employees at Sabreliner Corp. facilities located in both Perryville and Ste. Genevieve would be permanently laid off.

“We are feeling the sequestration,” Steve Sperry, Sabreliner’s Vice President of Business Development said on Friday. “It is no secret that 80 to 90 percent of the work we do comes from defense contracts, and less defense spending by the government means less work for us.”

Sperry said he hopes the latest round of layoffs will be the last for the company that has been cutting back to the “bare bones.”

“We are hopeful the next two or three weeks will see the last of the lay offs,” he said. “We are trying to size ourselves down to the amount of work we do have.”

Sperry said the company is currently exploring other options to bring in work.

“We are exploring other options, including civil and commercial work with the hopes that we will soon be able to put these fine people back to work again very soon.”

Sperry said the layoff did not come as much of a surprise to the employees.

“They have seen how things have slowed down for us,” he said.

According to the United States Department of Labor, the Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification Act (WARN) of 1988 was enacted to protect workers, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide notification 60 calendar days in advance of plant closings and mass layoffs.

In the letter to Cottrell, Sabreliner said that notice time under the WARN of 1988 was reduced “based on business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable at the time notice would have been required,” stating that the layoffs are the direct results of the cancellation of federal defense contracts due to the sequestration where across- the- board federal budget cuts went into affect on March 1.

Perry County Economic Development Director Scott Sattler said that Sabreliner is one of Perry County’s largest employers, with an estimated 425 employees listed in recent years.

“Any time we lose jobs, it concerns me,” Sattler said on Friday. “We here at the EDA will do whatever we can to help Sabreliner during this time, with the hopes of helping them succeed.”


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