CNI workers paying for Chads GEG deal Millions gone?

Because of Cherokee Nation Industries construction division being more than $1 million in the red four months into its fiscal year, the company has been forced to lay off employees.

CNI officials said only peak-time employees, who are hired when there is an abundance of work, have been affected. After the volume of work dies down, those employees are laid off.

It kind of ebbs and flows from week to week. So theyre really technically temps (temporary employees), and the reason theyre brought on is for the extra work, Cherokee Nation Businesses Communications Manager Amanda Clinton said. They are not full-time employees.

Clinton could not say how many peak-time employees CNI utilizes, but that the number fluctuates from contract to contract.

But Jodie Fishinghawk, one of the Tribal Councilors for Adair County where CNI is based, said she knows of four long-time CNI employees who were put on leave without work status in September.

She said those employees were aggravated by their situation and came to her.

Im taking up for them. After we (Tribal Council) said something, I got word that they were back to work, Fishinghawk said. The bad thing is it was done in the first place.

She said those employees, whose names she did not provide, lost pay and benefits while out of work. Fishinghawk said one of the employees whom she knows personally is a single, elderly woman who relied solely on CNI for her income.

It put them behind, she said. Anybody who has worked out there 10 plus years is not temporary. The four I talked to, every one of them are Cherokee, and they said what made them mad isthey kept other ones that wasnt Cherokee workers. They felt like after they had been there that long, they should have been kept.

During a Nov. 17 report to the councils Executive and Finance Committee, CNI Chief Financial Officer Robert Drvostep said the companys profit for September was $263,000.

For the fiscal year, which began in July, CNI has lost about $1,089,000. Drvostep said a major reason for the loss was the CNI construction services division.

He said for October CNI budgeted a loss of $393,000 but showed a profit of $176,000. The profit came from new contracts the companys staff services received during the summer.

One new CNI contract is with Elbit Systems of Fort Worth, Texas, which provides products and system solutions focusing on the U.S. military, commercial aviation, homeland security and medical instrumentation.

CNI will be providing parts for the Fire Con program, a weapon upgrade system. CNI could provide parts for the system for the three years, and the contract should be worth nearly $6 million over a two-year period and create six to eight new jobs.

Despite the losses, Drvostep said he believes that CNIs year is off to a good start.