Tuesday, December 16, 2008

More grim news for Waynesboro ... "all Invista workers notified of layoffs"

The headline is splashed across the top of the Waynesboro News Virginan this morning:
"All Invista workers notified of layoffs"
On the heels of Friday's unexpected layoffs of 210 workers, today's news will likely send the River City reeling as Invista workers receive notices alerting them to the possibility of being laid off in February.

The company downplayed the action ... a union spokesman said they were erring on the side of caution. According to the News Virginian:
That figure is three times higher than the 210 layoffs announced by the company last week. Invista spokeswoman Jodie Stutzman said today that because the company has not identified specifically which workers will be laid off, it included all employees in the notice. The company has said an undisclosed number of contract workers also will be laid off as part of a plan to idle nylon production.

“While we can’t estimate the exact number of contractors, we can tell you that the combination of employees and contractors to remain at the site will still exceed 500,” Stutzman said. “We’re still not sure just what those proportions will be.”

Jim Flickinger, president of United Local Workers Local 381 of the International Brotherhood of DuPont Workers, said Monday that the union would try to minimize the impact on its workers and called the current notification a precaution.

“I think they were erring on notifying too many rather than too few,” Flickinger said.
Read the entire story here.

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