A local manufacturer says production and shipments are going up. More business means it can bring back more workers. Declining sales forced Decatur's Mueller company to lay off one hundread and fifty employees. Now almost ninety percent of them are back.
About a year ago the company brought back around thirty workers. Then another fifteen here, twenty there. As production went up, so did the amount of staff. Only seventeen employees have yet to be called back.
Mueller saw most of its workers return in the spring and summer. That's when the water product company had a spike in demand. Production usually slows down in the colder months, but workers say this season might different.
"A lot of poeple were worried with the fall coming, that's our slow season, that there would be some more layoffs this fall. But right now they're telling us they think they'll have enough overtime in certain areas to work through the next month. So it looks like we'll be steady through most of winter, we're hoping," says Steve Moroney, a local union president. Moroney says workers are happy to be back.
They're especially glad to have benefits again. The company says numbers should stay on the rise through next year. They're even trying to call back two more workers.