Feb. 12--A long strike has turned into a permanent plant closing for 101 employees at the St. Joseph plant of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp.

Operating in bankruptcy protection, the box manufacturer filed its two-month layoff notice with Missouri this week, putting the plant's official closing in April, said Mike Mullin, a company spokesman at its Creve Coeur, Mo., headquarters.

In early December, 86 hourly employees at the St. Joseph corrugated box plant went on strike over wages and work rules. Smurfit-Stone filed for Chapter 11 reorganization Jan. 26.

The company held a bargaining session with officials of Graphic Communications Conference Local 235-M a few days after the bankruptcy filing, but the union reported little progress being made.

The St. Joseph plant stopped production in recent weeks, and work previously done there has been distributed to other company facilities, Mullin said. Smurfit has a box plant in Liberty and two other facilities in the Kansas City area, employing nearly 300 people.

The St. Joseph shutdown was not related to the company's decision to file for bankruptcy reorganization, according to Mullin.

Nevertheless, the notice to close the St. Joseph factory stunned union officials.

"We had met with the company a week earlier and had given management a proposal" on a new contract," said Byron Austin, president of Local 235-M. "So this notice came as a total surprise."

Austin said another meeting is set with company representatives next week.

"We're going to see if there's any way we can convince them to keep the plant open," he said. "Otherwise, our next step would be to negotiate effects (severance) bargaining."

Mullin said a meeting is scheduled to negotiate a severance package, but the company could not comment on any other aspects.

When asked about the plant's future, the company said at the last bargaining session that it did not plan on closing the St. Joseph plant, according to Austin.

Smurfit-Stone declined to comment. "We don't publicly discuss the specifics of negotiations," Mullin said.

To reach Randolph Heaster, call 816-234-4746 or send e-mail to rheaster@kcstar.com.

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