NORTH TONAWANDA — With the threat of coronavirus banging at Western New York’s door, Confer Plastics officials say they’ve been taking steps to insulate the company from the virus.
A local leader in the production of pool ladders and steps, patio and spa essentials, as well as custom blow-molding, Confer Plastics has plenty on the line as the threat of the virus has grown, both overseas and here in the United States.
Bob Confer, president of Confer Plastics, has been working hard to develop policies that prevent his business from being hit by the economic and health effects plaguing the world. His business has been effected by the coronavirus from both an operational and a sales standpoint.
From a sales standpoint, the effects come from the binging jobs back to the U.S. and the potential growth of staycations.
“When it comes to the reshoring (bringing jobs back to the U.S.,) we’ve been contacted by a half dozen companies within the past month and a half that have expressed concern, general frustration with their supply chain in China,” Confer said. “First, it was the tariffs … Now it’s the virus and the downtime associated with it. They’re looking at potentially looking bringing jobs back to the United States. That would be someone who has an existing product line and we end up making that for them. We’re in the process of having them potentially quoting that so we can bring those jobs back to the states.”
Confer added that would mostly relate to customer blow-molding work which accounts for about 30 percent of his business. The other 70 percent of the business comes from the swimming pools and spa products. He is counting on sales of these to increase since many families that were likely to travel overseas or to domestic destinations will be investing in staycations since the virus has become a global pandemic.
Other effects from the virus have been the decline in production companies that rip-off products made by Confer Plastics. With them out of the supply chain, Confer said, pool suppliers will be coming to him for products. Despite signs pointing to a possible coronavirus induced economic recession, Confer is positive his business will see some growth throughout the remainder of the year.
From an operational stand point, he has been working to educate employees and co-workers about proper ways to keep from being infected by the virus.
“Some of the things we’ve instituted are an international quarantine, for international travel, and that impacts our workplace in multiple ways,” Confer said. “First, it might be families that might have wanted to go to the Bahamas or something like that. But, we do have seven different countries represented here in our workforce and one out of every five of my co-workers was not born in the United States. In the event they wanted to go back home to visit family o something like that; there would be a 14-day quarantine upon their return flight to the states of which they could not return to work. The reason we do that is because I can’t trust foreign governments and how they handle various crises.”
Employees who are quarantined would be using their sick time, though confer said most employees have enough sick time to cover this. Only one person has been quarantined as of yet, though he has since returned to work. A further level of protection was issued by Confer to his suppliers and customers coming from or traveled in a foreign country. He has asked that they be put on a 14-day quarantine prior to visiting the factory if they have just traveled through a foreign country.
Starting on March 16, the company ceased using a hand scanner for employees to clock in and out for their shift. Confer will be disabling the scanner for either two months or until the threat of coronavirus has ended. Instead, supervisors will be manually checking when employees are arriving to work. Doing this will mitigate the risks of spreading germs among employees easier.
The business will also be looking to do more cleanups of common areas such as the break room. Confer has been advising his employees on how to safeguard their 401K and investment opportunities as the global market continues plummet.
In the coming weeks, he will be putting an end to travel, related to sales, so none of the companies sales staff are exposed to any disease. Sales staffers will instead be able to use video and phone conference calls. Confer has been working with other local business owners, to encourage Governor Cuomo to adjust New York State’s unemployment law. This would allow for those effected by community or company wide quarantines to be fiscally safe.
“First, you have to be able to grant that tool to the employers to do so,” Confer said. “Secondly, they’d have to change the language, temporarily for the emergency, to allow the affected worker not to have to go out and search for work. Because the requirements say you have to be out their searching for work. The third suggestion I have for them, to make this work for the whole economy, is to eliminate the whole waiting week period. Because, if someone knows they are going into quarantine fo at least two weeks, there’s no reason the unemployment should have that waiting week in there.”
Regardless of the hardships that have been generated by coronavirus, Confer said the one thing he cannot control is if the government imposes a lockdown or a quarantine. However, he’s confident that Confer Plastics will be in good shape for the time being.
