Cliffs layoffs to begin

MARQUETTE - Cliffs Natural Resources officials have confirmed more than 300 employees at the Tilden and Empire mines will be laid off on Sunday.

Cliffs spokesman Dale Hemmila said an additional 70 employees are scheduled to be laid off in March. The affected employees were given a Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification this week. A mandatory 60-day notification period is required under terms of the U.S. Department of Labor's WARN Act.

Hemmila also said the Empire Mine in Palmer and the Tilden Mine in National Mine will be shut down for part of the summer.

"Based on the budget we've put together and our operating plan at 6.7 million tons of pellets for 2009, that would require a shutdown this summer of both facilities," Hemmila said.

Both mines are scheduled to shut down in early July, Hemmila said. The Tilden is scheduled to close for 26 days. The Empire is scheduled for a shutdown of seven weeks.

Union officials were in a meeting this morning and could not be reached for comment.

In December, Cliffs announced that combined production at both mines would be reduced from an estimated 12 million tons of iron ore in 2008 to 6.7 million tons this year.

Hemmila said one of the triggers for a WARN posting is if the company predicts more than 50 layoffs for a period of more than six months, but added the actual length of the layoffs will be determined by the economy.

"Obviously, we never like to lay people off. We'd like to be at full production but we're at the mercy of the global economy... and how it's affected the steel and iron ore industry," Hemmila said. "If you had talked to me or anyone from the company a year ago, I don't think they would have predicted this."

There are currently about 1,600 workers on the Marquette Iron Range.