All Invista workers notified of layoffs

All 632 Invista workers at the company’s Waynesboro plant have received notice that they could be laid off Feb. 8, according to federally required documents filed by the fibers manufacturer with the state.

That figure is three times higher than the 210 layoffs announced by the company last week. Invista spokeswoman Jodie Stutzman said Monday that figure remains correct and 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.

Invista began the year with 1,100 company and contract workers at its plant on the South River, making it the city’s largest employer.

The Mundy Companies, a Houston-based industry services firm contracted by Invista, notified 137 workers Dec. 5 of layoffs, according to state records. Invista filed its notice Dec 9.

Under federal law, an employer must file a written warning notice with employees or their union representative 60 days in advance of a plant closing or mass layoff. A mass layoff is defined as the reduction of at least 33 percent of a company’s workforce.

A layoff of 210 workers calculates to 33.7 percent of Invista’s 623 company employees. The law also requires notices to be provided to state and local government.

“Everybody had to receive a warn notice, because, as I said before, staffing plans haven’t been finalized,” Stutzman said.

Invista has idled and restarted operations in the past, Stutzman said. The idling of nylon production in Waynesboro is “intended to be temporary,” she said.

Flickinger said he believes the plant will remain open.

“I get no indication from the company they have intent of shutting down the facility,” Flickinger said. “In fact, I clearly believe they’re only idling the BCF [bulked continuous filament] facility due to the poor economy.”

Warning letters filed with the state sometimes do not list specific layoff data, said Willie Blanton, the manager of the State Dislocated Worker unit, the Virginia agency that receives layoff notices.

“We get some instances where there’s uncertainty on the absolute number and they tell us that in the letter,” Blanton said.

Some layoffs, he said, do not materialize.

“We don’t know up front,” Blanton said. “There are no definitives to us except for what they tell you in the letter.”

Companies that break federal layoff notification laws are liable for back pay and benefits for workers for the duration of the violation, up to 60 days. Employers also may face $500 fines for each day of the violation.

Notification laws took effect under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act in 1989.

The law says company notices must provide the location where a closing or mass layoff will occur, a statement as to whether it is a plant closing or a mass layoff, the expected date of first separation and the number of affected employees in each job classification.

Companies must file a warning notice with the highest-ranking locally elected official in addition to workers and the state.

Flickinger said the union and Invista have begun discussions and said everything was on the table. The union’s intent, he said, is to reduce the number of Invista workers being laid off, and to replace contract workers with union workers wherever possible.

“Everything needs to be discussed – the number and everything that would be relevant to the number,” Flickinger said.

The Local 381 president said “numerous” workers have reacted negatively to comments made by Councilwoman Nancy Dowdy last week following the initial news of the layoffs. She was disappointed that city officials did not get more of a heads-up of the layoffs, though by law, only the leading elected official – Mayor Tim Williams – was required to get such a notice.

She said everyone at Invista feels like they could lose their job because the layoffs wouldn’t be done by seniority, something Flickinger denied.

“I think it’s totally inappropriate when an elected official who doesn’t know what they’re talking about makes quotes in the paper that are completely inaccurate,” Flickinger said.

He said it was “completely inappropriate” to increase the anxiety level at the plant with such comments.

“There is an agreement, there is a contractual agreement between the company and the union that there is a seniority-based agreement [on layoffs],” Flickinger said. “For anything else to occur, it takes discussions above that.”