Baldwin Chief: Layoffs Are Temporary

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
Baldwin Chief: Layoffs Are Temporary

.c The Associated Press

  
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - The head of Baldwin Piano and Organ Co. said Monday that 
workers laid off at two company plants in Arkansas could be back at work this 
week. 

``We expect to have some resolution of our shutdown problem within the next 
few days,'' Bob Jones, chief executive officer and president of the 
Ohio-based company, said in a telephone interview. ``We are working 
diligently to be able to catch up the payroll from last week.'' 

Based in Mason, Ohio, Baldwin is the largest piano maker in the country. It 
employs about 400 people in Arkansas at plants in Trumann and Conway. 

Its hourly work force was laid off last week without pay after company 
officials learned they didn't have enough money for the payroll. 

In January, Baldwin laid off 67 workers in Trumann. In May, the company filed 
Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Ohio. Several workers were laid off the following 
month. 

Jones also said Monday that a Baldwin plant manager gave the media inaccurate 
information about Baldwin's reorganization efforts. 

He said that contrary to what Trumann plant manager Richard Austin said last 
week, Baldwin is not scheduled to appear before a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in 
Cincinnati this week to ask for changes involving the company's primary 
lender, General Electric Capital. 

Also, Jones said, Baldwin officials have not decided to reject a loan offer 
made by General Electric Capital, as Austin maintained. 

Jones said Austin also was wrong when he said that the GE proposal would put 
Baldwin deeper into debt and that Baldwin was interested in making GE a 
secondary lender and having another company become primary lender. ``There is 
no discussion with anyone about doing that,'' Jones said. 

``Obviously, GE is extremely upset and this could jeopardize our relationship 
with them,'' he said. 

Correcting other statements Austin made, Jones said the company has 
``substantially more orders'' than $900,000 worth and those orders were being 
shipped. 

In the court case, company management will meet with unsecured creditors Aug. 
22 in Ohio to discuss the reorganization plan.


---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/cb/25/48/db/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--