5000+ employees will be told what SF has planned at 10 an today. Some will relocate, some will stay, some will be out of a job.
By: Diane Benjamin
How many State Farm employees are going to be left in Bloomington if the ax ever quits falling on employees?
Does anybody believe 15,000?
Local governments are doing budgets now. If they know the truth, their budgets do not reflect it.
Local business owners need to know what to expect so they can plan. Homeowners need to know if their property values are about to plummet as former employees are forced to relocate to find work.
I know State Farm has threatened employees about talking publicly. It isn’t working. Many think they have nothing to lose.
State Farm has been great for the local economy, but adjusting to changing conditions requires knowing what to expect.
March is expected to be brutal.
State Farm needs to tell the public the truth now.
Local governments need to do a lot more cutting, they are contributing to the local decline by taxing everything.
They can’t even fix the roads, the economy is only fixed when government gets out of the way.
.
.
.
Very true
It’s disgusting, Diane! I’m told that State Farm is relatively open in its discussions with the Town of Normal and City of Bloomington. Our local politicians would rather play ignorant so they can continue to spend money we don’t have on pet projects to appease their pals and political ideology. It’s going to be devastating! Let’s line up the FOIAs to see how frequent and in what level of detail State Farm informed our dear leaders. By the way, Tari needs to work on his acting skills. No rational person would believe that he was surprised to know the downtown office of State Farm was closing.
Yes – very disgusting – Playing ignorant to this coming disaster is (in my mind) a borderline criminal set of behaviors. Nothing is being done to prepare our people, our cities’ budgets and our businesses for what is coming. Our leadership refuses to even talk about what is happening to our main economic driver. When an auto worker is laid off – there are 5 supplier jobs lost. What will be the ratio for State Farm workers? 2 to 1 or 3 to 1? Will 2 or 3 regular B/N workers lose their jobs for every 1 State Farm worker laid off? It is really hard to say but we do know one thing… regular people in B/N will lose their jobs as a result of State Farm laying off. These folks will not be getting fancy severance packages or buyouts. They will get 25 weeks of unemployment compensation and whatever vacation they have accumulated. From what I can gather from the State Farm layoff site https://www.thelayoff.com/state-farm?sort=active the numbers range between 500 to 3500 will be laid off here. So that will mean that thousands of regular people will soon lose their jobs here in B/N. How could anything about future spending be on either cities’ agendas with this Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads? It appears there is a coordinated collective insanity from all our business and government leadership working to deny and ignore reality.
BN, I don’t think Tari is ACTING! I think he lives in his own little arrogant, pompous, pious, degrading “bubble” and he believes that everything in OK! Some folks just don’t have amazing powers of observation, so they never notice!
Gee…you might have me there, Townie! Happy to concede that point. The willful blindness of the elites in Bloomington-Normal has been on full display. The Chamber black-tie gala was analogous to the first class passengers on the Titanic noshing on hors-d’oeuvres and enjoying the band, while the ship and its passengers are sinking. Oh, and the elaborate bus terminal plans arriving seemingly out of nowhere from Fartsworth Group. Not enough monuments to big government, its cronies and their failures?
Why would State Farm’s “executive sessions” be any different than the City’s. SF does not owe the City anything. Whatever decisions SF makes are strictly business related. It is up to the public officials to “read the tea leaves.” The “red flags” have been flapping in the wind for quite a while but City leadership (I use that term loosely) is colorblind.
For what’s worth SF has to compete with other employers to attract the work force they need.
Given the choice to locate in the icy cold area of central IL and humid summers verses let’s say AZ where the weather is better or other places which do you think people would choose? SF can do all of the interior decorating locally they can but that won’t be enough.
Many employers are offering work from home. Home being where you choose it to be. SF seems to be lacking in this area.
At one time the focus on hiring was to nab people from small towns rather than say for example from Chicago. The premise was the small town person would be more likely to stay. I suspect that the market basket of those small town people is getting smaller.
I had a thought hit me tonight. I wonder if the reason Tari has been pushing downtown so hard and buying up all the properties around it is because he truly believes that the best thing to do is build an amazing downtown. If you build it, they will come (they being new businesses). To me, that approach is the equivalent of a person who is about to lose their job going out and racking up a bunch of credit card debt on luxury goods. I wonder if Tari’s is equating his approach with a person about to lose their job taking on student loan debt to enroll in college to learn a new (marketable) skill.
Decatur tried this approach. How’s that working out for them? They are now Illinois Policy Institute’s poster city for government failure. No business will locate here because the downtown is nice. They will locate here if there are resources (people, land, office space, good internet). We have all of that, focus on marketing it.
Too much common sense!
STATEFARM is the worse company on this planet. It was just a matter of time that this company was going to spiral down from all the customers they screwed. Truth , honesty and doing the right thing is definitely not the policy this company follows. Karma is a bitch. Now it’s time to pay the piper..
I have come to the conclusion Diane that you dont have anything good to say about bloomington/normal. That your opinion is all that matters period.
Diane gets it. You don’t
Actually the people on this site (with Diane in the lead) all REALLY care about out B/N… which is why they are commenting and discussing the reality of what is happening here without (media spin, leadership spin, silence and inaction in the face of an impending disaster). This site has brought transparency to an area run by 20th Century crony capitalist bosses whose only real goal is to enrich themselves and their friends. In this Age of Information the establishment cannot hide their activities from the people. Diane and the people that follow and comment on this blog are successfully holding the leadership of this area accountable for their actions. The truth will set you free… unless the truth is something that threatens your income, position, status or power – Right Raserback?
Maybe I need to do a post on everything nobody would know without this site. It’s a long list.
Raserback. I was BORN and raised here. In almost 60 years, I have seen this go from a nice town where the EAST SIDE was anything east of Mercer st. and State farm build a corporate office in the middle of a bean field, Eastland build a mall with FREE PARKING-which killed downtown. And being a great place to raise children! Miller park was just that-A PARK, not a 3 ring circus with GOD knows what all now. Is the old submarine still there? The tanks?
Then along came Judy, and her
“Markorena” along with ALL her section 8 people who are WHAT is the driving force behind a lot of the crime in this city now.. And now we have Tari and his turrets, who seem hell bent on destroying what LITTLE of the “nice town: is left”.. NIOT!
Still miss the old root beer place on Main St-it was just south of the old Eisners store..
I came here in 1970. I loved this town then… look at the Frankenstein of a town that we have now? I also miss what we used to have here… it was taken from us by the same Crony Capitalist bosses that run the show here now. It’s a sad state of affairs here in my adopted home town.
I agree. I have been here 60+ years myself and it has gone from great to poor. Priorities are all messed up at city hall. Thousands of jobs are gone while not all the city’s fault but they have played a big part in it.
I have to agree with raserback. A lot of criticism and opinion, but little offered in the way of actual reporting or solutions on this site. I’d be interested in what Lawrence or Townie or Diane or skunk or maggie (God bless her) or good ol’ Angela Scott might actually do if they were to run for office to fix things. It’s easy to criticize, but what are your economic development proposals, how would you fix the roads, how would you redevelop downtown or attract businesses to the community? Where would you find the revenue to pay for services. What would you cut to pay for services or repaving?
Just last week I gave a long list of potential cuts. TOOOO much money is spent on making employees comfortable while no money is available for essential services. TOOO much money is spent on Quality of Life that benefits a small percent of the population too, You must have missed that story.
See Dick run. See Dick Lie. See Dick go.
More Gaslighting Rich? Really? Run for office? (For everyone reading this Rich is using obfuscation to try to confuse and redirect the issues toward the truth tellers like they are candidates running for offices) Right… so unless we are prepared to join the system that is pretty much totally corrupt… shut up? What your buddies have been doing is not working… we are pointing that out. Redevelop the downtown? Not going to work… is that not obvious? It has been proven that the leadership we have now thinks retail shops and funneling money to the crony businesses in the downtown is economic development…(News flash, Rich… that is not economic development it is crony capitalism) We on this site have been preaching fiscal responsibility and a lower tax burden… is this not obvious?… and what happens all the time in both cities’ governments? They find new ways all the time to spend more money and then ways to take it from the taxpayers. Now with State Farm going into decline and our tax base declining, this town (both towns) are pretty much financially screwed thanks to the leadership in this area. Welcome to the new little Detroit on the Prairie… bought to you by Rich’s buddies…
You know what the two big differences between Me and Dick are?
1. I’m asked my for government to stop robbing us. That is my solution.
2. Dick calls me out using my real name because I’m not afraid to stand by the truth. Dick is apparently afraid to stand by his lies.
Thank you Lawrence for callIng Dick out for what he/she is.
What is really interesting is I didn’t even comment on this story. I wonder if Dick called me out because I’m getting a little to close for comfort with the truth.
I’m not stopping.
My pleasure Angela…like I told Razerhead in my earlier comment…The truth will set you free… unless the truth is something that threatens your income, position, status or power… right Rich?
From what I’ve read on social media by those who work there, the SF layoffs (a lot of them!) are coming this week…
Reblogged this on BLNNews and commented:
Update!
It is simple…BOHICA
Meaning?
Bend
Over
Here
It
Comes
Again