American Heart: Volunteer and Save Your Job

March 15, 2010— -- Like many companies in these tough times, Navistar Diesel of Alabama, faced severe layoffs this January, but unlike other companies, it devised a way to keep employees on the payroll. Instead of laying off workers, plant manager Chuck Sibley kept them on, and loaned them out to local charities -- saving the jobs of 50 people, who would have been laid off.

"We knew last July we were going to have a problem, that we're going to have too many people and we weren't going to have work for them in January," Sibley told ABC News. "I woke up at 3 a.m. in the morning, trying to figure out what I am going to do with everybody, and it just popped into my head that I could get them to do community work because we knew this was going to be a temporary thing." He approached the president of the engine group, and the ball began rolling.

Navistar began what it's calling the Employee to Volunteer program. Instead of reporting to work at the Huntsville Ala., engine plants, 50 employees are working for Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army and a local charity that builds wheel chair ramps for the homebound.

Sibley runs two plants in Alabama for Navistar, with a total of 331 workers. The company makes diesel engines for various truck manufacturers. Of the 250 assembly line workers, 20 percent volunteer so all the workers can keep their plant positions.

Employee Eric Rogers, who is now making wheelchair ramps, says, "We've gotten to where we are enjoying this." When ABC News caught up with him, he was installing a ramp in an elderly woman's home. "When the ambulance comes here, they gotta fight through the door, we just made it easier access," he said. He and his team were building their 26th ramp.

"It helps everybody … it helps the community," says Andy Yarbrough, a plant machinist who is spending his days constructing houses for Habitat for Humanity.

The plant workers are very grateful to their boss for starting the program, especially in these times of hardship for many Americans across the country. "It's amazing. There's no real way to really describe what they have done," said Rogers.