MENASHA, Wisconsin (From news reports) -- U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin listened on Friday afternoon to Kimberly-Clark Corp. employees facing layoffs, and the group collectively shed some tears.

The tissues on the table at the United Steelworkers office weren't one of K-C's brands, a detail many of them noticed.

The message workers wanted to convey to Baldwin was that they were proud of their work and were reeling from the gut punch that their Cold Spring plant in Fox Crossing was on the chopping block in the company's recently announced global restructuring plan. It, along with the Neenah Nonwovens facility, are slated to be shuttered, eliminating 610 jobs.

The Cold Spring facility is the only plant that makes Depend adult incontinence products in North America.

"We're No. 1 out of 91 plants. We're the most profitable facility by far," said Paul Luebke, a worker with 25 years at Cold Spring. "We took nothing and built it into a billion-dollar business. This is our reward."

"Three weeks before, we had a meeting, and they said we'd beaten and exceeded all the goals they set for us," said machine operator Jessica Schiessl. "Three weeks later they called us back in the same room and said we were shutting down. It was shocking. It made you want to vomit. We had no idea. Not giving us a chance to prove ourselves was huge."

The workers told Baldwin their personal stories privately before letting media in the room.

"We whiffle-waffled from being hopeful to 'the end is near,'" said worker Karmen Jones. "We said something has got to be done about the way Washington is run. Corporate greed has to stop. Something has to change with Wall Street running the country."

Baldwin has been publicly critical of K-C executives using corporate tax cuts to fund increased shareholder dividends and stock buybacks at the same time it cut jobs..

Baldwin sent a letter Feb. 7 to Kimberly-Clark's board of directors saying she had a "deep concern for the Wisconsin workers whose hard work should be rewarded, but instead face layoffs," and called K-C executives' actions "simply wrong."

On Friday, she said she has not gotten a formal response to the letter.

"Kimberly-Clark made $3.3 billion in profits last year and this plant contributed mightily," she said. "I have a hard time understanding this plant is meeting and exceeding its goals and that it's on the shutdown list."

She told workers she was trying to get answers and would continue to fight, though she knew the industry was battered by many factors including foreign competition and pulp prices.

Workers said the products they made were in high demand and aren't going away.

"A lot of people think we make paper. We don't. We make Depend products. There are 10,000 people turning 60 every day," said Jones. "They're going to move our machines to other plants."

On Thursday, Gov. Scott Walker also wrote to K-C executives pitching a deal to keep the two Fox Cities plants open.

"We put the best offer we could on the table," he told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, but indicated "It's hard to tell" if K-C will accept the tax deal.

Baldwin questioned that deal.

"The decisions are very puzzling to me. I've heard $100 million in incentives. But Kimberly-Clark just got major tax benefits from the recently passed tax bill in Congress. They could whittle back a little of the $900 million stock buyback they had this year and make it $800 million," she said.

"There are vast sums of money going to stock buyouts and dividends for investors. Companies need investors, but these have been at the expense of workers. Publicly traded companies are doing this more and more."

She said the "Wisconsin way" used to make sure 100-year-old companies were strengthened to be around for 100 more years. Not anymore.

"These are decisions made to jack up the stock prices next quarter," she said. "The community impact is enormous. It's absolutely enormous."

Dallas-based K-C is the Fox Cities' third largest employer. Neenah Nonwovens is expected to close in 18 months. K-C has not indicated when Cold Spring would be closed.

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