Sanyo begins making LCDs planned for FC in Tijuana

Liquid crystal display televisions that were expected to be built at the Sanyo plant in Forrest City are now in production at the companys Tijuana, Mexico facility.

In December, Sanyo officials announced that the increasing demand for flat screen televisions was forcing the company to lay off more than one-third of its local workforce because the plant has traditionally produced cathode ray (picture tube) televisions (CRT), which are becoming obsolete. Orders for those have declined from 1.5 million in 2004 to less than an anticipated 300,000 sets for fiscal year 2007, which begins April 1, company officials have said.

When the layoffs were announced, company officials said they were negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with the International Union of Electronics, Electrical, Technical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers-Communication Workers of America (IUE-CWA) to cover the new operations.