While some companies are making headlines because workers are being laid off or jobs are moving overseas, an Iowa cabinet manufacturer is making the news for sending their employees on a cruise.
Bertch Cabinet manufacturing workers, all 800 of them, are heading on vacation in January on the boss’ dime.
“We leave Jan. 8,” company president Gary Bertch told The Courier. “We’ve got four charter aircraft that will be flying directly to Miami Sunday and staying at a nice five-star hotel. Then on Monday, we’ll bus over from the hotel to the port and load up on the ship.”
The trip will include a week-long Caribbean cruise, and a stop at the island of Cozumel off the coast of Mexico.
Employees were challenged a year ago to meet certain goals and the cruise was offered as an incentive. Bertch has offered its employees mass-winter-vacations in the past, however not since 2005.
“We finally got into the black again last year after we made it through the recession,” Bertch said.
Bertch co-founded the company with his wife, Becky, in 1977. The business once employed more than 1,000 people however dropped to about 600 in 2011. Since then, employment has steadily increased.