The long wait: Laid-off Smurfit-Stone employees sit anxiously by the phone, hoping for good news

Dana Richardson got her dream job in July, when Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. http://www.smurfit.com called and said she was one of 30 people – out of more than 1,000 applicants – to land a job at the Frenchtown linerboard plant.

Richardson, 40, had waited nearly three years for an opening with the company.

“It’s the best job in town,” said the stepmother to five children. “Everyone here is thankful for their job, and nobody wants to let it go.”

Average pay is $23 an hour and the work comes with good health insurance, a retirement plan, and a compressed 40-hour-a-week schedule that allows for three-day, sometimes four-day weekends.

But in November, after a few short months on the job, Richardson was one of 52 workers laid off and told by Smurfit-Stone executives that the No. 2 linerboard machine was taking “market-related down time” because of the struggling national economy.

By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2009/01/04/news/top/news01.txt