Another Nissan/Yates job fair

They have another job fair this weekend for those interested in working at Nissan.

Jobseekers in Rutherford and neighboring middle Tennessee counties are invited to apply to Yates Services, LLC, for positions located at Nissan’s factory in Smyrna, the state announced today.

The job fair will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Murfreesboro Career Center, 1313 Old Fort Parkway, according to the news release from the Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development.

Of course they are looking for ones with certain skills and qualifications.

Qualifications:
o Must be at least 18 years of age:
o Must have a valid driver’s license (any state) and second form of ID;
o Must be able to speak, read, and write English fluently;
o Must be able to pass a criminal background check (no felony convictions);
o Must be able to pass a thorough drug screen (zero tolerance);
o Must have at least a high school diploma or GED equivalent;
o Prefer 6 months of previous industrial experience in a high-volume manufacturing environment reflected on résumé or application;
o Please note that if you have interviewed with Yates in the past 6 months, you will not be eligible to reapply.

It should be noted that if you CAN NOT make the fair you can just go to Yates during the week and apply. A relative applied earlier this week and they have already been hired. This job fair is not the only chance to get a job there, it is just easier to get job applicants all in one place.

Good luck.

1100 jobs to be filled in Smyrna

Looks like there is going to be another mass call out for job applicants for the new Nissan expansion.

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development and Yates Services LLC will host a job fair Wednesday, Nov. 2, to help Nissan fill more than 1,100 positions at its Smyrna vehicle-production facility.

Good luck. Just in the last few days the gov announced that unemployment was up slightly in our county.

Nissan Smyrna Solar Charging Station Construction

I was very surprised how strong the solar panels are when watching this video. You can see them being walked on by the construction workers. I do hope that this new production line carries through and creates permanent jobs for Smyrna. This is the third large solar panel system I've seen installed in Smyrna in the last year. The other two are the Solar farm at Schneider Electric and the one at Rexall Drugs on Lowry Street.

Hiring at Nissan....NOW!

It looks like the hiring phase of the plant and new production line going online next year is now happening.

Jobseekers in Rutherford and neighboring Middle Tennessee counties are invited to apply to Yates Services, LLC, for positions located at Nissan’s Vehicle Assembly Plant in Smyrna.

The job fair will take place between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday at the Murfreesboro Career Center, 1313 Old Fort Parkway.

Good luck.

News Update

Nissan has announced that the plant in Smyrna and plants elsewhere, will be closed for certain days due to part supply issues.

Nissan will stop production at factories in Tennessee, Mississippi and Mexico over the next two weeks because of uncertain availability of parts from Japan, the company said today.

Assembly plants in Smyrna, Tenn., and Canton, Miss., and an engine plant in Decherd, Tenn., will be idle on April 8-11 and then April 18-21.

Nissan did say that these days were scheduled later in the year and moved forward.

Nissan said in a statement that it was moving forward previously planned non-production days from the second and third quarter of this year.

Nothing is said about the pay for employees during these shutdown days.

The Nissan Battery plant is on schedule.

Construction is progressing on Nissan's manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Tenn., which will produce lithium-ion batteries to power the Nissan LEAF zero-emission vehicle. The all-electric Nissan LEAF will be produced at Nissan's vehicle assembly facility in Smyrna beginning in 2012.

The foundation is laid, structure being erected and roof being installed on the vehicle battery manufacturing plant, which at 1.3 million square feet at full capacity will be one of the largest in the country. The battery plant will be capable of producing 200,000 advanced-technology batteries annually. It is located adjacent to Nissan's vehicle assembly plant, which is being retooled to accommodate production of Nissan LEAF and will be capable of producing 150,000 electric cars annually. Combined, Nissan LEAF and battery production will create up to 1,300 U.S. manufacturing jobs when the plants are operating at full capacity

The 1,300 job number looks very nice. I know people have spoken harshly against Nissan for using temp workers and the payouts, but you would be hard pressed to view this in a negative light.

When being in the top sucks

This might sound like a post to create fear in parents but you need to note one phrase first.

Chemicals most responsible for the toxicity outside this school

These are the chemicals we all breath in.

The USA Today did a report and by using the numbers based upon air pollution at schools ranked them and Smyrna was in the top 1 percent (1%) for having issues with pollution.

John Colemon Elementary School 348 of 127,809
Lancaster Christian Academy 541 of 127,809
Smyrna High School 212 of 127,809
Stewartsboro Elementary 328 of 127,809

If I read this right that means there are only 212 schools with worse outside air then Smyrna High School in the country. That counts all of the industrial towns, mill towns, towns with refineries. Please tell me our air is not that damn bad people. If it is why is no one up in arms about it. Not just for our kids, but for our own lungs.

This is also the air that you and I breath. Examine the school ranking between Smyrna and Murfreesboro and note the differences.

The main polluter according to the article is Nissan. Scorecard website information on Nissan pollution output.

Meeting that you might want to attend

With the issue of Nissan in the air the company and Department of Energy will have a meeting tonight you might want to attend.

The U.S. Department of Energy will conduct a meeting Thursday to obtain public comments regarding preparation of an environmental assessment for its proposed action of issuing a federal loan to Nissan to support construction of its battery manufacturing and electric vehicle production project in Smyrna.

The meeting will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Smyrna Room at the Smyrna Town Centre, 100 Sam Ridley Parkway East.

I have some questions on their lithium-ion batteries that I would like answered.

Interesting viewpoint

A Tennessean news article says that the large number of possible jobs might not be as glorious as some are hyping.

Nissan's plans to create up to 1,300 jobs to build electric cars and batteries don't necessarily mean more overall employees at the Smyrna factory.

More than 5,000 workers, including about 4,000 employed by Nissan, remain at the plant after voluntary buyouts, and it's difficult to say what the net gain or loss will be by 2012 when the company expects to launch production of the EV emissions-free vehicles, a Nissan official said.

It will create new jobs, but the article implies the number of NEW hires might not be there.

Jobs coming to Smyrna

The Obama administration announced that Smyrna would be one of three sites getting a pile of money for retooling.

$1.6 billion to Nissan North America to retool their Smyrna, Tennessee factory to build advanced electric automobiles and to build an advanced battery manufacturing facility.

Another article said that this could bring a thousand new jobs to our town. How many will be filled with the temp-to-full workers is unknown, but jobs are jobs.

A $1.6 billion federal loan for Nissan North America Inc. to build a zero-emissions electric car and battery packs to power them could eventually create more than 1,000 new jobs at the automaker's assembly complex in Tennessee.

The batteries will be built in a new plant to be constructed here in the near future.

Change of news already

Nissan has announced the following.

NEW YORK — Nissan says it has no plans for additional job cuts in the U.S. following its announcement of 20,000 job cuts worldwide.

Nissan North America spokesman Alan Buddendeck says the company has made the cuts it needs and does not expect “extensive further job actions” in the U.S.

This will make a lot of people in Smyrna happy.

What impact

Nissan in the last couple of years have had payouts to lower the number of workers. That was when the economy was simply shaky. Now that the economy is suffering a full scale seizure the worst has happened.

Today Nissan announced that there would be 20,000 workers worldwide laid off. As of now the specific site of those layoffs are still unknown, so a lot of people in Smyrna are worried...and rightly so.

A Nissan spokesman in Franklin says the company is not yet saying if its job cutting will include employees at plants in Tennessee and Mississippi.

Nissan spokesman Fred Standish said the locations will be announced "hopefully very soon."

Japan's third largest automaker announced Monday in Tokyo that 20,000 jobs are being cut by March 2010 as the company deals with its first annual loss in nine years.

About 12,000 of the job cuts will be in Japan, including group companies.

That means 8,000 elsewhere and that means Smyrna likely will get hit with a few of those numbers. The layoffs will be done by March 2010, so do not expect massive hits immediately.

Good news for Smyrna

There are still some bad feelings about Nissan and the payoffs that occured, and increase in temp workers. These bad feelings may fade as there may be a need for more workers in the near future.

Nissan North America Inc. will build a midsize pickup truck for Suzuki Motor Corp. at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, starting in 2008.
......
Preparations are under way to ready the Smyrna plant.

Hopefully this will require more fulltime workers.