Marshfield tries to absorb loss of casket company

MARSHFIELD, Mo. -- Employees of York Quality Caskets and the people of Marshfield are trying to figure out how to survive when the casket company closes next weekend, after more than four decades in business.

The company's owner, Pittsburgh-based Matthews International, said it was closing the plant and moving its work to other facilities, including one in Mexico. It said the move was necessary to help the company better compete in the global economy.

The decision means about 140 people will lose their jobs in the Ozarks town of about 6,800. And the workers will be trying to replace jobs that paid about $15 an hour.

"It's going to hurt," said Paul Ipock, presiding commissioner for Webster County. "We're a small community."

Dena and Tom Lowder of Conway have worked at the plant for 25 years.

"It has raised my children, paid for my house," said the 60-year-old Dena Lowder. "It's been my career."

The Lowders have found jobs -- with a pay cut for Dena -- at Paul Mueller Co., but they have to make the 30-mile drive to Springfield to work.

"Guess what? That's life," Dena Lowder said. "That's the reality."

Alice Simpson, who works with dislocated workers at the Missouri Career Center in Springfield, said production workers will be challenged to find similar jobs in the Ozarks.

"The wages were very good, and they have the same type of skills," Simpson said, adding that basic assembly jobs are almost nonexistent in the region.

Since jobs at the Marshfield plant are going to a foreign country, workers are eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance in addition to Workforce Investment Act programs, federal programs that provide job retraining, Simpson said.

About 65 workers have inquired about the TAA program, she said.

Rita Needham, executive director for the Southwest Area Manufacturers Association, said the region has manufacturing jobs if the workers are willing to drive to such places as Springfield and Lebanon.

In 2001, Matthews International bought The York Group, the nation's second biggest casket maker. It announced in December that it would close York Casket.

Employees at the Marshfield plant said they trained those who would work at the Mexico facility. But they had hoped their plant would stay open after Matthews closed other plants in the country in the last few years.

When it announced the closing in December, Matthews International said the company would continue production at its Richmond, Ind., metal casket facility and its new manufacturing facility in Mexico.

Gary Fraker, owner of Fraker Funeral Home Inc. in Marshfield, said the loss of the plant will hurt workers' families and have a long-term impact on Marshfield.

In a small casket display room, Fraker showed an 18-gauge steel York casket made at the local plant but distributed through a Kansas City company.

He will still get York caskets, but they won't be made locally any more.

"We really hate it [the closing]," Fraker said. "Over the years, we have bought a lot of caskets from them."