Last Cape shoe factory closes

Cape Shoe Co. officials blame cheap foreign labor.

Southeast Missouri has lost its last shoe manufacturer.

For five years Cape Shoe Co. struggled to stay alive producing union-made shoes using only American products in an industry hurt badly by cheaper foreign labor.

Last week the company finally succumbed, discontinuing operations effective Friday. Company president Eli Fishman cited foreign competition as the key reason for the layoff of about 30 employees.

"Unfortunately, our original business model has proven impractical," Fishman stated in a letter to the company's customers. "It required us to produce a high-quality product at a competitive price using well-paid union labor and all domestically produced components. This approach was contrary to the strategy employed by most competitors, which is comprised of hyping cheap imported product."

The company was the last shoe manufacturer in Southeast Missouri, and the most recent shoe company to start up in the United States.

Cape Shoe Co. started operations in 2000, taking over what was once the Florsheim Shoe Building -- a symbol of what was by then already a declining industry that had been vibrant in Southeast Missouri.

Florsheim built the plant in Cape Girardeau in 1968, a 92,000-square-foot space designed for large shoe manufacturing operations. But Florsheim closed in 1999, laying off some 300 workers, the last in a long line of shoe plant closings in the area dating back to the mid-1970s.

Fishman wanted to produce American-made products in a market where those products had become increasingly harder to sell with cheaper foreign competition. He started out in the vastness of the old Florsheim building with about 60 employees, many of them from Florsheim.

By a little over a year after opening Fishman was talking of doubling his workforce due to increased sales, but by the time Cape Shoe Co. announced its closing, it only employed about 30 workers and had long since moved to a smaller manufacturing space.

In 2002, Cape Shoe Co. swapped property with RM Coco Fabrics, moving to that company's former location on Rusmar Street. RM Coco needed to expand, while Cape Shoe Co. needed a smaller plant for its operations.

By the time the plant closed, Fishman said in his letter, sales volume had been increasing, but the company hadn't been able to sustain enough activity to be consistently profitable.

Mitch Robinson, director of MAGNET, the area's industrial recruitment group, said the closing is part of a trend of job loss from overseas competition, especially in the shoe industry.

"I wonder how many shoe companies still exist in the United States," Robinson said. "We don't have any other shoe plants in the area; there's probably not any in Missouri."

The loss is similar to layoffs that happened at Rubbermaid, said Robinson, which was also partially due to foreign competition.

"Companies are re-aligning who they're doing business with and selling to better reflect current market conditions," he said.

Those who are hurt the worst by the layoffs, said Robinson, are the employees. Many of the workers at Cape Shoe Co. are receiving assistance in training for new jobs and finding new work through the Missouri Workforce Development Board.

The company's employees are getting assistance through federal and state funds partially because their jobs were lost to foreign competition.

Cape Shoe's employees were members of the United Auto Workers union, which helped them file for assistance through the federal Trade Act.

"They were definitely shut down due to foreign competition," said UAW associate general counsel Phil Gilliam. "I feel really bad that Cape Shoe is deciding to walk away, because we need products made in the United States."

Gilliam said he has been helping laid-off employees get help through the Trade Act for 15 years, and he has never been as busy as he is now. But the training provided through federal and state assistance can help laid-off workers get into other jobs, giving them some hope, he said.

Harold Brown of Jackson didn't work at Cape Shoe Co. when it closed, but he did work at Florsheim for 38 years and then started at Cape Shoe until 2001 when he sought other employment due to a lack of hours.

Brown said going through the change was one of the hardest things he's ever done.

"Now I'm working at the Lutheran Home driving a van and making a third of the amount of money I made," said Brown. "My wife also has to work and together we're making two-thirds of what I made alone at Florsheim. "It's very upsetting. You get mad and then you get hurt and you think about all the jobs leaving the country and all the people losing their jobs."

But Robinson said there is hope for local workers. Despite higher unemployment rates and the layoffs at Rubbermaid and Cape Shoe, the local economy remains strong, he said.

"We'll have more companies come in and people will close in the future, but there's always positive things happening in the area and I believe the economy is very strong," said Robinson.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182