Familiar-sounding company hiring ‘production operators’

If you want to believe a November Facebook posting, Batesville, the casket company that is, is looking for production operators, for immediate hiring.
Although second is the only shift currently needing operators, you need only a primary or secondary education. They offer you a place for “our great team work” the ad reads.
The company is offering direct contracts (no temps here) with employees, cash bonuses of assistance, punctuality and pantry vouchers with a salary increase in three months, plus a savings fund, dining room and transportation.
The pay is 157.00 a day.
Sound too good to be true? Then you should apply at Batesville Chihuahua.
Oh, the 157.00 a day is in pesos. That’s roughly $7.80 per day in U.S. dollars according to a person smarter than me who is familiar with exchange rates. He says that’s two-and-a-half Mexicans for a day for what was paid to one American for an hour.
And you need to be a male to apply according to the advertisement. You also need to be between the ages of 23 and 47.
And so go the factory jobs that have put food on the table for many in our community. We were first told the employment cutbacks were due to decreasing casket numbers needed due to alternatives such as cremation.
That’s understandable. But all the while a sister plant is being built in Chihuahua while our locally employed workers are packing up equipment and shipping it south, across the border.
And it was a good run. The company provided good jobs for over 20 years and their attractive facility along one of the nation’s most traveled north-south interstate highways was a living billboard of local prosperity.
So what’s next?
Who knows. Without an economic development director on board it’s all a guess.
Hopefully a new one will soon be selected and begin leading our county’s efforts to fill the void.