Forget the New Math; nobody could understand it anyway. Now it’s the New Geography: Richmond, Va., + Green Bay, Wis., = Deerfield, Ill.
Huh? Well, that’s more or less the formula Ft. James Corp. has adopted. The company, the result of the merger of Richmond-based James River Corp. and Green Bay-based Ft. Howard Corp., will move its executive headquarters into a building under construction in Deerfield. About 250 employees will move in once the building is complete in early 1998. Until then, a small group will work out of a site in Lincolnshire.
Why Deerfield when both companies already had headquarters? Dick Elder, a Ft. James spokesman from the James River side, said it was the clean-slate theory.
“Ft. Howard had its headquarters in Green Bay, we’ve had our corporate headquarters in Richmond, Va., and a lot of our executives were actually operating out of Connecticut. I think, in the spirit of a merger of equals, the best thing to do is to start in a new place.”
Senior executives and support staff will be in Deerfield. Corporate headquarters, with the bulk of company-wide functions, will remain in Richmond, Elder added, and many functions from the Ft. Howard side of the business will remain in Green Bay.
Of the 250 positions expected to be in Deerfield, some will be transferees and others new hires, said Clifford A. Bowers, a spokesman from the Ft. Howard side of the merger.
“It’s early in the process,” he said. “They start at the top of the organization to build teams, so it will take a while to play out. We can’t tell you exactly how many Packer fans will be moving down there.”
Bowers insists the Green Bay troops aren’t hesitant about moving into Bears territory. “We’re just going to have to be cautious.”
Role reversal: When a company decides to shut down an operation because of union recalcitrance, there are certain things that are said routinely. Those things were said this week when Navistar International Corp. announced it would close an Indianapolis foundry where the United Auto Workers had voted against a local contract as well as a new master agreement.
The master contract was approved by 63 percent of Navistar’s UAW workers, and the Springfield, Ohio, local approved an agreement allowing a new truck to be built there.
Consider:
“Of course, the bad news is the foundry situation, but people have a right to determine their own destiny. The people voted and made that decision.”
And: “The (union) leadership in Springfield stood up and recognized where they had to go and carried that message back. The opposite happened in Indianapolis.”
Or: “I don’t think there’s a locked door if the parties (in Indianapolis) were interested in opening negotiations or sitting down to talk. I don’t know how long it will be open.”
Nothing unusual in any of those comments, except the speaker. It wasn’t a Navistar executive giving the company line. It was UAW international vice president Jack Laskowski.
Just asking: Employees of Outboard Marine Corp. in Waukegan are more than a little miffed that management hasn’t kept them up to date on the pending merger/takeover.
The company had accepted a $16-a-share offer from Detroit Diesel Corp., only to get an $18-a-share offer from an investor group called Greenmarine.
But management has taken the time to give employees updated literature about company policy concerning severance in the event of a takeover. We hear employees are taking that as a strong hint about the fate of their jobs, whichever offer wins the day.
