Rocky Mount, NC, November 15--Job losses in the textile industry continue with American Fibers & Yarn Co.'s Rocky Mount plant closure, according to the Rocky Mount Telegram.
The company employed between 35 and 40 people at its Edgecombe County plant, said the company's human resources director Tamara Dreyer, who declined to comment on a possibility of severance packages.
N.C. Employment Security Office Manager Steve Rogers said his Rocky Mount office did not get advance information about the closing.
"Affected workers can call us next week and get an appointment to file for unemployment insurance," Rogers said. "We will try to expose them to other opportunities at that time, such as retraining."
American Fibers & Yarns has gradually reduced its Rocky Mount work force in the past several years, Carolinas Gateway Partnership president John Gessaman said, and "its closing is very disappointing news, but not surprising."
Gessaman said that beginning in the early 1990s, the textile industry in North Carolina and in the Twin Counties in particular has seen a significant reduction in employees.
"From being one of the largest industry sectors, it is the smallest today," he said. "This is why we have worked so hard to bring other jobs into the area, and we have been very successful in doing that. We have great prospects for the future."
Carolinas Gateway Partnership vice president Oppie Jordan said the American Fibers & Yarns closing is all the more reason why the Rocky Mount area has to continue to recruit new companies.
"This closing is going to present a fairly large, vacant industrial facility," she said. "We will try hard to get other users in there."
The Carolinas Gateway Partnership has some success in remarketing industrial buildings in the Twin Counties, particularly in Tarboro, Jordan said.
"The Black & Decker building was converted to a successful Air Systems Components plant that manufactures vents for air conditioning systems make vents for air conditioning systems," Jordan said. "The old Wellington-Sears building on Anaconda Road that manufactured draperies was filled by Nomaco, a toy manufacturer, and its subsidiary Focal Point, a home decorations manufacturer."
Gessaman said one of Pillowtex's facilities in Rocky Mount was reoccupied by DC Automotive, an automotive recycling company.
"There have also been recent sales of industrial buildings to MBM (a Rocky Mount-based food distributor), Crown Carrier, a transportation company, and others," he said.
American Fibers & Yarn is evaluating the disposition of the equipment and will be offering positions at its other facilities to affected hourly employees, the company said in a written statement.
The company is a supplier of synthetic filament yarn to the home furnishings, contract, hospitality, apparel, automotive and industrial markets.
American Fibers & Yarns began as Phillips Fibers Corp., a subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum Co. In 1993, Amoco Fabrics and Fibers Corp., a subsidiary of Amoco Oil Corp., purchased Phillips Fibers Corp. The combined companies became the largest U.S. supplier of solution-dyed filament yarns, staple fiber, needle punch nonwovens and carpet backing.
In 1999, Amoco Fabrics and Fibers Corp. sold the fibers division to a private equity firm, Monitor Clipper Partners of Cambridge, Mass. The company has its headquarters in Chapel Hill.
