Baldacci: Doors will open for ex-Moosehead workers

DOVER-FOXCROFT – Gov. John Baldacci told former Moosehead Manufacturing Co. employees Tuesday that when “one door closes, another opens.”

Those words have been repeated often over the past few years as industries in Maine have closed because they were unable to compete with cheap foreign imports as in the case of the Piscataquis County furniture manufacturer or because jobs were outsourced to Third World countries.

To emphasize how true the adage is, Baldacci said two former Great Northern Paper Co. employees went on to become a nurse and a plumber, making even more money than they previously earned.

This is an opportunity, he said, for the laid-off Moosehead workers to shift to something else they may want to try.

About 20 of the 90 people who were laid off last week met at the CareerCenter in Dover-Foxcroft on Tuesday to begin the process of remolding their lives.

“You are very, very talented people,” Baldacci told the workers during his brief visit. “We’re all concerned and we’re all doing what we can do” to help.

As the local CareerCenter, the state Department of Labor and the Rapid Response Team, and other local, county and state representatives work with the employees to get them retrained, obtain more education or find another job,

Baldacci said he is working with owner John Wentworth to learn more about the business and what help can be provided. He said the company is still getting orders.

One former worker asked the governor if he was aware of any severance package that might be provided by the company. The man said he thought it was a federal law that the displaced workers be provided the benefit. Baldacci said he had not been told of any severance package.

Judy Pelletier, statewide Rapid Response coordinator, told the workers Tuesday that Moosehead Manufacturing Co. did not fit the criteria for a severance package. The company did not employ more than 100 in each of its facilities and there were not 100 people or more laid off.

About 90 employees received their termination papers leaving a skeleton crew of 36 in the Dover-Foxcroft plant and Monson factory.

Despite not receiving a severance package, some workers had nothing but praise Tuesday for the company that had provided them with steady employment over the years. They said it had been “unique” to work at an industry whose owners lived in the community.

The furniture company is a “little gem” in the woods, said former worker Martha Tartachny, 53, of Blanchard.