Power Crisis Leads to Layoffs at Some Firms
Officials at four Ventura County companies said Friday that ongoing power interruptions have forced them to temporarily lay off or send home hundreds of employees, and some warned that they may face relocation or closure.
The businesses include plastics manufacturers in Oxnard, Moorpark and Simi Valley and a beauty supply firm in Camarillo.
In total, the companies employ more than 1,500 people countywide and are among about a dozen companies in Ventura County that have entered into money-saving deals with Southern California Edison since 1994.
By agreeing to endure blackouts during peak demand times, the businesses pay up to 20% less for energy. Statewide, 160 businesses signed similar agreements.
Faced with the prospect of permanently losing employees and customers and possible closures, company officials expressed outrage Friday at state legislators and the state Public Utilities Commission, which has refused to allow the companies to pull out of the agreements despite assurances to the contrary when they were signed.
“If this situation continues, I’m going to be out of business,” said Paul Strong, president of Poly-Tainer Inc. in Simi Valley, a company that makes plastic parts for cosmetics and medical packaging.
Strong said his company shut its doors Tuesday after 10 power interruptions of up to six hours each since the start of the month. About 300 people have been temporarily laid off but 25 were set to return Friday night to work a graveyard shift.
Friday marked the fourth day of a Stage 3 emergency throughout the Southland that Edison officials said could last through the weekend. The stage is the last step before mandatory rolling blackouts for all power users.
Most of the affected employees work on assembly lines that involve machinery that uses large quantities of power.
“We’re doing everything we can to keep everybody working, but if every week is like this week, at some point it will be impossible,” said Brooks Hilton, plant manager of Waterways Plastics in Oxnard, which makes plastic parts for the swimming pool and spa industry.
The company has been hit by 11 blackouts since the start of the year, and up to 60 of the company’s 600 employees have been sent home early from shifts, Hilton said.
Hilton warned that the energy crisis may have a trickle-down effect that could devastate the state’s economy.
“If California can’t turn this around, it won’t be just our industry,” Hilton said. “It will be thousands of manufacturers that will not be able to produce their products, and competitors that live in other states and countries will be able to come in and take our business. It will completely cripple the state’s manufacturing industry.”
At Lander Co. in Camarillo, which employs about 75 people who make health and beauty supplies, a company official said that about one-third of its work force had been sent home early or temporarily laid off in the wake of a dozen power interruptions since Jan. 1.
If the blackouts continue, it could damage the industry tremendously, said Jerry Bundy, director of Lander’s operations. “It could very well move us out of California.”
Richard Lan, chief executive officer for Maple Leaf Bakery in Oxnard, said the blackouts have cost the company thousands of dollars in lost wages as well as bread and other baked goods that have been thrown out.
Lan said that long-term layoffs of some of his 143 employees are possible.
“I can’t just keep paying people for doing nothing, but we will do everything humanly possible to prevent that from happening,” said Lan of the bakery, which serves as the distribution center for the company’s West Coast operations.
Because of the shutdowns, the Chicago-based company has been forced to ship bakery items to the West Coast from a plant in Virginia, he said.
“We now have customers who are saying, ‘I don’t care who your [power] suppliers are; get me bread,” Lan said. “I have only been in a couple of Third World countries, but their power companies are run better than in California.”
Pentair Pool Products in Moorpark has been slightly more fortunate, said Kevin Potucek, vice president of product development.
The business, which makes swimming pool and spa parts, has also been forced to send a portion of its 600 employees home early on certain days, but the hit has been small because Pentair contracts for an alternate energy supply.
“It certainly is something that has taken our attention, though,” Potucek said.
Edison spokeswoman Nancy Williams said the power giant sympathizes with the companies, but the situation is out of Edison’s control because power flow is regulated by a nonprofit state agency.
“We know it’s extremely hard for them, but our hands are tied,” Williams said. “The ‘interruptibles’ are the last-ditch effort and that’s what’s saving Ventura County from going into rolling blackouts. Every consumer should be thanking them.”
“We hold our legislators responsible,” said Hilton, of Waterways Plastics. “In private business if you make this kind of mistake you lose your job and your company.”
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Staff writer Tim Hughes contributed to this report.
* MAIN COVERAGE
State could spend $5.4 billion in the next 90 days to avert blackouts. A1
