Materials Interruption Causes Invista Layoffs

Waynesboro, VA, Dec. 5, 2008--More than 130 contract employees at Invista's Waynesboro plant will be laid off because of a decrease in production due to an interruption in the supply of raw materials, according to the Newsvirginian.com.

Ben Ramsey, a human resources manager with The Mundy Companies, an industrial services contractor, said the employees would be let go between now and the end of the month. Invista gave the company the news early this afternoon.

Of the 132 employees, 55 of them have been on furlough since September. Andy Beard of The Mundy Companies said they had “reason to believe” those employees would return.

“We had anticipated that, and that is why we had not terminated their employment,” Beard said.

The 55 were previously furloughed because of a lack of raw materials coming to Waynesboro’s Invista plant, according to Ronnie Blackburn, Mundy contract manager. The furlough allowed those employees to continue to receive benefits while awaiting word of their status.

Invista spokeswoman Erica Taylor told the newspaper that the move was a “temporary curtailment” driven by an interruption in the flow of raw materials from the company’s three Texas plants, which were impacted by two hurricanes earlier this year.

None of the laid-off employees will receive a “true severance pay,” Beard said, but “they will be eligible to apply for unemployment benefits.”

Mundy still has a presence at the Waynesboro site, with 204 total contractors - 157 of them in production and 47 in maintenance and construction. The current layoffs represent about 13 percent of Invista’s workforce of 1,000.