Joe Swanson, a resident of Perry, Iowa, is no longer working in the town he loves and where his kids go to school. That’s because the city’s largest employer, a Tyson Foods pork plant, recently shut down.
Swanson says when the company announced in March they were shuttering the plant, he couldn’t risk unemployment because of his health issues. So when he found a new job with health benefits, he says he took it and left Tyson around six weeks before it officially closed on June 28.
“None of us picked this, and I just want everybody to be OK. Because I know how hard this is going to be for a lot of people,” said Swanson, who worked at the factory for nearly 14 years.
Many of the 1,300 hundred other laid-off employees are now grappling with the same situation — living, but no longer working, in Perry. A new path forward may be somewhere else.
“You have the power to make sure that you find the right opportunity that’s going to benefit you and your family,” Swanson said.
But the reality in Perry is that the right opportunities left a long time ago. The meat processing plant is not modern enough for the company, and upgrades would simply cost too much.
“Maybe we were hoping for a miracle at first, where we can just turn off the lights on June 28th and turn them back on with a new user. And that’s simply not the case,” said Rachel Wacker, executive director of the Greater Dallas County Development Alliance.
The Tyson plant employed about 25% of Perry’s working-age residents before it shuttered, according to city and county officials. Accounting for workers’ families and businesses directly related to the plant, about 60% of the town is affected by the closure.
Two hundred team members relocated to Tyson facilities in Iowa and outside the state, Tyson Foods told CBS News.
The plight of the so-called “one-factory” town is not new.
In the 1970s, Youngstown, Ohio, was a thriving steel city of 140,000 people. The mills closed, and now the population is less than half of what it used to be, according to U.S. Census data. Ohio was hit hard again in 2008, when a shipping hub in Wilmington closed, leaving 42% of the working age population without a job.
In Farmerville, Louisiana, a chicken plant that employed more than a third of the town shut down in 2009, the CBS News data team found.
Back in Perry, people like Nacho Calderon are learning from history. After being laid off at the Tyson plant, he hopes to become a garbage or concrete truck driver.
Driving garbage trucks in Perry requires a commercial drivers license. The local community college is giving trucking classes for free to give workers a shot at staying in town.
Calderon says he’s sad he lost his job, and also for his coworkers who may not have cars or much money to help them get back on their feet.
As Calderon is still looking for work, Swanson has this advice: “Take control.”
He found a job handling maintenance at an apartment complex out of town.
“[It’s] what I feel like is a great opportunity, and I want that for everyone,” Swanson said.
It’s a hopeful wish for friends who lost their jobs, but against all odds, refuse to quit on their city.
Dave Malkoff
Dave Malkoff is a national correspondent with the CBS Local News Innovation Lab, where his work appears across all CBS News and Station platforms.
