Armstrong Employees Warned of Further Job Cuts

Lancaster, PA, August 29--Armstrong will eliminate more jobs and reduce benefits to slash expenses by $50 million in both 2006 and 2007, employees have been told, according to the Lancaster New Era. The company needs to take strong action to reverse a steep decline in profits, especially in its flagship business, resilient flooring, the employees were told. Armstrong chief executive officer Michael Lockhart and other Armstrong officials delivered the news to employees at the firm’s Columbia Avenue headquarters on Aug. 16. No specific actions were announced. Nor was a timetable given for any decisions. But according to employees who were at the meeting, the executives said Armstrong is reviewing outsourcing overseas an undetermined number of office jobs, further increasing the employee share of health insurance costs and raising the threshold for full retirement from the so-called Rule of 90, an employee’s age plus years of service. The company’s last major layoffs here came late last year, when it eliminated 450 jobs at the Lancaster floor plant and 70 at its headquarters. Armstrong has been in bankruptcy since December 2000 to resolve nearly 200,000 asbestos-injury lawsuits filed against it. Locally, its work force has dropped from 2,900 when it entered bankruptcy to a projected 2,050 in May 2006, when a downsizing of its Lancaster floor plant will be completed.