PORT ST. LUCIE — Seven city employees from the Engineering Department were laid off on Friday because of a lack of work, according to city officials on Monday.

Officials aren’t sure if or when more layoffs will occur because of the slowdown or because of the city’s upcoming budget cuts.
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STUART — Martin County’s lowest-paid workers will keep fighting the county’s furlough program because they can’t afford a 5 percent pay cut, a union leader said Tuesday.

Teamsters Local 769, which represents 275 of the county’s clerical and blue collar workers, will ask the Public Employees Relations Commission to resolve the contract dispute through binding arbitration, said Mavis Curley, the union’s chief steward in Martin County.

The furlough program requiring all county employees, except fire rescue workers, to take one unpaid day off per month starting Friday violates the Teamsters contract, Curley said. Under the contract, a workweek is 40 hours.
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Thursday, March 26, 2009

STUART — The Martin County Clerk of the Circuit Court laid off nine workers in response to a steep decline in fee and fine revenue, but the clerks in St. Lucie and Indian River counties said they don’t have to go that far yet.

Martin County Clerk Marsha Ewing said she was forced to resort to layoffs in response to projections showing a $400,000 deficit in court-related revenue.

“When your budget is 90 percent salaries, obviously, that’s where the cuts have to come from,” Ewing said. “It was the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my career but, unfortunately, I was forced to lay off nine people.”

Court clerks throughout Florida are facing similar revenue shortfalls because the recession has resulted in fewer people filing lawsuits and paying fines and service charges, Ewing and other court clerks said.

St. Lucie County Clerk Joe Smith and Jeff Smith, the chief deputy clerk in Indian River County, said they don’t anticipate laying off any workers in the near future, but that could change depending on what happens with the economy and the state Legislative session.

“We will not have layoffs this week,” Jeff Smith said. “We are barely holding our own at the present time. Of course, this situation is fluid and could change at anytime in the future, but as of now we don’t have layoffs planned for the near future.” (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Layoffs are hitting city employees because of the suffering construction industry and housing bust of the current economy

Last week, 15 utilities department employees were laid off and six new employees still in their probationary period were terminated. Eleven others were reassigned within the department. Officials said the cuts were because of lack of work for utility hookups in new homes and not the anticipated $10 million shortfall in next year’s budget.

The positions were needed during the housing boom a few years ago. City Manager Don Cooper denied a utilities department request to hire even more people then because city officials said the boom would eventually slow and potentially cause layoffs.
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Employees at Pratt & Whitney in Northern Palm Beach County will receive five days off, without pay, as the parent company of both Pratt and Sikorsky Aircraft lowered its 2009 profit forecast and announced that 11,600 workers will be laid off in 2009.

Pratt’s portions of the sprawling facility along the Beeline Highway in Northern Palm Beach County will be shut down, along with all Hartford, Conn.-based United Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney locations in the United States, on April 13, May 22, Sept. 4, Oct. 12 and Nov. 25.

“The furlough program is a part of our overall efforts to reduce costs with a focus on ensuring a strong future for the company, our employees, customers and shareowners,” the company released in a statement.

The moves, part of an expanded $750 million restructuring program because of the deteriorating commercial aerospace market, are being driven by a decline in expected revenue, which is now seen totaling $55 billion this year, down $2.7 billion from a December estimate.

Besides the furlough days, Pratt & Whitney has limited hiring, decreased the use of contract and temporary personnel, cut back on travel and deferred merit pay increases for 2009. (more…)

The $50 copay for his Plavix prescription was more than Leon Graybill could afford, even before he was laid off.

As of Saturday, Graybill and the other 299 people laid off Feb. 10 from Piper Aircraft Inc. are without employer-based health insurance. They join the growing ranks of unemployed people struggling to pay for individual health insurance — or more often, daring to go without insurance so they can pay to keep a roof over their heads and food on their table.

Graybill is a 55-year-old stroke and heart attack survivor with a bum knee. His wife is a 53-year-old per diem nurse, meaning she doesn’t get benefits. She is diabetic and needs some dental work.

“With all of that hanging around, insurance is crucial,” Graybill said.

But it also might be unaffordable.

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Greg Osborne has trouble sleeping at night.

Osborne, a former Piper Aircraft Inc. employee who got laid off earlier this month, wonders how he’ll be able to pay for his five prescriptions when his medical insurance runs out at the end of the month. He worries about how he’ll make rent this month and how he can delay paying for utilities.

But most of all, he prays that his kidney cancer doesn’t return.

“I loved my job. I loved that company, I loved my co-workers, it was my life. It was my family,” said Osborne, a former aircraft inspector at Piper for more than 11 years. “There’s days go by, I don’t even eat.”

Osborne joined other former Piper employees at a workshop organized by the United Way and Workforce Solutions of Indian River County Monday. The two agencies held seminars to help former Piper employees find social services and other financial assistance from the county and state. (more…)

STUART — Business is down so much in the Martin County Courthouse that Court Clerk Marsha Ewing said Monday she may have to resort to layoffs in her 15-person office.

“I’m hoping and I’m praying that it doesn’t come to it, but it’s very possible that it will come to layoffs if things don’t turn around,” Ewing said.

Ewing said she rescinded a 3 percent pay raise in January and required all workers to take an unpaid day off each month in response to the downturn in filings that has reduced fee payments by nearly $600,000 compared to last year. (more…)

Slumping aircraft sales are prompting more furloughs at Piper Aircraft Inc.’s headquarters in Vero Beach.

The plane maker announced today that it would shut down the plant at the Vero Beach Municipal Airport for one week in May and one week in June, forcing all employees to take unpaid leave.

The furloughs are in addition to week-long plant closures planned for April and July, which Piper announced earlier this month. (more…)