Mayor Sarno and his Administration have provided an initial outreach to local, state and regional partners to review and coordinate efforts in providing assistance to these employees and their families.
In response to Mayor Sarno’s statement that the City of Springfield’s will focus the Administration’s efforts to assist those employees and families who may be affected by this move and to work with all of our local, state and regional partners to offer workforce placement assistance and/or retraining aspects. The Mayor has received acknowledgement and correspondences from MassHire Executive Director David Cruise who has offered to help coordinate this process in the near future and from Keith Campbell of DFF Corporation in Agawam offering to provide assistance to help facilitate a job fair for those workers.
Mayor Sarno states, “I want to thank MassHire Executive Director Dave Cruise for his continued stewardship and leadership efforts on this front. Special thanks to Keith Campbell of DFF for reaching out to my office and offering to help facilitate a job fair for those workers. I was impressed to hear that they have been expanding exponentially and have hired over 190 new employees in the last 18 months, just terrific.”
“I want to reassure these workers and their families that my Administration will do whatever we can to provide assistance during this transition period,” Mayor Sarno continued. “There is light at the end of the tunnel. Again, I want to deeply thank and acknowledge MassHire and DFF, a local precision machine manufacturing company, for offering to collaborate and facilitate assistances for these skilled workers. CDO Tim Sheehan, Human Resource and Labor Relations Director Attorney William Mahoney and I will continue to work with all of our local and regional partners to offer any workforce placement assistance and/or retraining aspects. I want to thank and acknowledge State Senator Eric Lesser for also reaching out and offering to assistance in any capacity he can from the Massachusetts State Senate.”
“My Administration will continue to work with Governor Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito, MassHire Executive Director Dave Cruise, Smith & Wesson President and CEO Mark Smith and our state Legislature so that not only are these 550 employees offered a fair opportunity that is best for their families but just as important, we will continue to work with Smith & Wesson to retain the 1,000 remaining jobs here in Springfield,” Mayor Sarno added.