IBEW Local 429 (Nashville, TN) Members' Jobs Threatened by Toshiba Shift

Change in TV preferences means layoffs in Lebanon

By BUSH BERNARD, Staff Writer, The Tennessean, Thursday, 02/24/05


The impending demise of analog TV sets has led Toshiba America Consumer Products to plan to shut down two production lines at its Lebanon plant next month and lay off 160 employees.

The company declined to disclose details of the layoffs yesterday, other than to acknowledge in a statement that they are because of the shutdown of lines that make cathode-ray tube, or CRT, direct-view television sets.

''As TV technology shifts from CRT-based products to Microdisplay, such as DLP, and with the growing popularity of flat panel TV, Toshiba continues to streamline their processes and resources to meet consumer demand,'' the statement said.

The layoffs are in line with seasonal layoffs the company has done in the past, said Robert Emery Jr., business manager for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 429, which represents hourly production workers at the plant.

The layoffs usually follow the company's peak sales period around Christmas and the Super Bowl, Emery said.

Last year, the company laid off 132 people and called 80% of them back to work when demand for TVs picked up again.

''We've got our fingers crossed that all of them will be called back,'' Emery said of workers who will be laid off.

A Toshiba executive, speaking at the American Consumer Electronics Show last month in Las Vegas, predicted sales of digital TVs would rise 42% to 10 million sets this year industrywide.

The only television models that showed sales declines last year were the conventional CRT models, the executive reported.

Toshiba is introducing a new digital TV line that relies on a set of chips created by Texas Instruments that sharpens the picture of rear projector TVs. The company is offering a full line of the so-called DLP sets this year.

Some of those TV sets will be built in Lebanon, where the company makes a variety of upper-end TV sets. The plant employs about 1,000 people, including more than 900 production workers.

''If this new television that they have starts off and starts growing … hopefully they'll get called back,'' Emery said of the laid-off workers.

Bush Bernard covers manufacturing, labor and transportation. He can be reached at 259-8092 or bbernard@tennessean.com.