CAPE SHOE FACTORY WILL ADD JOBS FROM WEST PLAINS CLOSURE

The Cape Girardeau Florsheim plant is expected to add some new workers at its plant following an announcement Thursday that the West Plains, Mo., Florsheim plant will close.

A spokesmen said Thursday that production at Cape Girardeau and Kirksville will be stepped up, with the addition of a total of 100 new workers at the two plants.

The Cape Girardeau plant is located at 1600 West End Blvd.

"We can't say at this point how many workers will be added to which plant," said a spokesman of Interco, parent company of Florsheim. "We know that when everything is squared around, the production figures will be about the same as they are now, which helps us in our battle against imports."

Jim Orso of St. Louis, another Interco spokesman, said, "Florsheim Shoe Co. will close its West Plains plant and shift its production to the remaining Missouri plants. "About 350 workers will be affected at the West Plains facility."

Some West Plains workers may be offered relocation opportunities, Orso added.

A Florsheim warehouse facility in Jefferson City will not be affected by the changes, Orso said.

Florsheim is based in Chicago.

A total of 440 people now work at the Cape Girardeau facility. The Kirksville plant employs about 500.

Changes will start in May and should be completed by July 1, noted the Interco spokesman. "We don't known what salary scale the workers will be going in at at Cape or Kirksville."

The West Plains shoe factory is the fifth to announce closing this year in Southeast Missouri.

Brown Shoe Co. announced in January that four Southeast Missouri shoe factories would close operations by the end of 1994.

Among the Brown plants that will close are operations at Caruthersville and Mountain Grove, a component plant at Piedmont and a centralized cutting facility at Charleston. Also closing this year will be one Brown Shoe operation in Selmer, Tenn.

The five Brown closures will affect 1,700 jobs, 1,300 of them in the 8th Congressional District of Southeast Missouri.

These include 412 workers at Caruthersville, 408 at Mountain Grove, 211 at Charleston and 297 at Piedmont.

The closings are in rural areas that depend heavily on shoe factory jobs. In many cases, both spouses work at the shoe plants, leaving some families with the dismal prospect of no income.