MEETING SET TO ASSIST FLORSHEIM EMPLOYEES

The Department of Economic Development and its new Division of Workforce Development have moved to provide help to the more than 300 employees who will lose their jobs when Florsheim closes its Cape Girardeau shoe factory later this year.

Department representatives will meet Tuesday with Florsheim officials to discuss the types of services available for the workers, said Pat Thompson of the department's Division of Workforce Development at Jefferson City.

Following the Tuesday session, arrangements will be made to meet with employees.

Services to the employees include retraining employees for new jobs and help in preparing resumes.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson has urged quick action by state and federal officials.

In a letter to Gov. Mel Carnahan Tuesday, Emerson, R-Mo., requested the expeditious deployment of the state's Rapid Response Team to Cape Girardeau.

In a separate letter to U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman, she urged the Labor Department to act promptly on certifying displaced Florsheim workers as eligible for benefits and assistance under the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and the Trade Readjustment Program (TRP).

"It is unfortunate that Florsheim Shoe Company has decided to shut down the Cape Girardeau facility," said Emerson. "Florsheim has been a major employer in the area and some local families have been worked in the plant for generations."

Emerson said it was her hope everyone would work swiftly to ensure Florsheim employees will have immediate access to job training and other re-employment services.

Florsheim has operated in Cape Girardeau since soon after the turn of the century. It will close by year's end. The factory's output primarily will be transferred to a joint venture the company has with a manufacturing partner in India.

The local factory produced men's shoes and John Deere Boots.

Because of the size of the layoff, the state will conduct the Rapid Response Program.

The shoe factory closing is the second in Southeast Missouri over the past two months. Trimfoot announced in June it was closing its Farmington plant.

The shoe industry was a mainstay in rural Missouri economies at the turn of the century, and as late as the early 1970s, more than 25,000 Missourians worked in shoe factories .

Now, shoe factories employ fewer than 20,000 Americans as operations have moved to foreign countries where labor is plentiful and cheap.

China is the world's largest shoe producer, with workers putting in 12- to 15-hour days and earning less than the U.S. minimum wage. In some nations, minimum wages are no more than 36 cents an hour.

As many as 90 shoe factories operated in Missouri during the early years of the century. Almost every community had a shoe factory, including Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Perryville, Malden, Piedmont, Ironton, Caruthersville, Dexter and Charleston.

Cape Girardeau had two shoe factories -- Harley Shoe Co. and International Shoe -- with more than 1,200 workers. As late as 1955, International Shoe employed 1,000 workers here.

Florsheim and Trimfoot were the last shoe factories in the Southeast Missouri.

Brown Shoe closed its last five U.S. shoe factories in 1995. Missouri took the brunt of Brown Shoe's plant closings between 1984 and 1995, including the final four in 1995 at Caruthersville, Charleston, Piedmont and Mountain Grove.

The Cape Girardeau Florsheim was its last U.S. plant. It had had operations at Anna, Ill., Paducah, Ky., and Kirksville, Ill.

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, more than 200 U.S. shoe factories closed from 1981 to 1985. At that time, 500 shoe plants remained scattered throughout 38 states. Over the next five years, another 4,000 jobs and several plants were eliminated.

More than 70,000 jobs have been eliminated over the past seven years, as the nation's shoe production has shrunk by a much as 40 percent.

In 1981, imported shoes had a 50 percent share of the U.S. shoe market. In 1998, imports made up 87 percent of the shoes sold in the United States.