
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 29, 1990                   TAG: 9007290206
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D-8   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOUISA                                LENGTH: Medium

COMPANY GIVES EMPLOYEES LAND

Employee reaction has been lukewarm to a plastics manufacturer's offer to give them land on which to build homes, the president of the company said.

"We were thinking, `My God, they will jump on this,' " said Harry vanBeek of Kloeckner-Pentaplast of America. "I think they are just watching what is happening."

So far, six employees have said they will build houses on the wooded lots in the company's proposed $1.5 million subdivision about a mile from its Louisa County plant. The company is offering the 1-to 3-acre lots in an effort to keep employees from defecting to neighboring businesses.

"The idea is very old," vanBeek said. "In the old days in Germany, and in the steel plants here, they did it."

The company employs 500 people.

VanBeek said he wanted to get an edge on competing industries - such as Gordonsville's Liberty Fabrics and Greene County's Nimbus Records - by offering employees more than standard benefits.

"In order to be sure that employees stay with you, you have to do something more for them," he said. "We are here in a rural area with high employment. In order to attract people, we have to go as far as 30 to 40 miles away. You will eventually lose them if something comes open in their area."

"Kloeckner Village," will be built on 95 acres. Workers with at least three years at the plant qualify to build homes on 46 lots given to them by the company. The lots range in value from $15,000 to $25,000.

The subdivision gives workers an opportunity to buy a house more quickly in an area with relatively high land prices, said company personnel manager Stephen Becker.

If a worker sells his house before age 55, he or she must pay Kloeckner a fair market value for the land, Becker said. At 55, the worker is given the land.

Becker would not reveal the company's employee turnover rate, but he said it is highest among workers who have been with the company three months or less.

If the subdivision goes well, the company may use more of its 300 acres for housing, Becker said.

Construction is expected to begin in late summer or early fall.

by CNB