Dive Brief:
- Clemens Food Group plans to shutter a pork processing plant that produces Kunzler & Co. food products in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, according to an Oct. 4 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act post.
- The closure is scheduled for Dec. 7 and will lay off 193 workers, according to a notice from the company to the city of Lancaster.
- Clemens, the fifth largest pork processor in the U.S., has also “had many conversations” with a potential buyer for the facility, the company said in an Oct. 4 statement.
Dive Insight:
The notice comes five months after Clemens acquired Kunzler in May, which included two more facilities in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, Stephanie Simon, Clemens’ senior communications manager, said in an email.
However, the company made plans at that time to shift Kunzler’s smoked meats production to Clemens’ new facility in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, in an effort to streamline production, according to a July 1 release.
Clemens also announced plans to move Hatfield and Kunzler-branded franks production to a co-packer facility, but that a “significant amount of franks production” would remain in Lancaster.
As talks to sell the Lancaster plant continue, the company said its “desire remains that workforce opportunities for those in the Lancaster area will continue with new plant ownership,” according to the Oct. 4 release.
“We do want to reiterate that with the imminent closure taking place, we remain hopeful that any subsequent owner of the plant will create new opportunities for impacted team members, and we are now focusing our efforts on ensuring that the workers directly affected are supported through this transition,” Simon said.
Approximately 75% of the impacted employees are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 152 union, according to the company’s WARN Act letter.
At the time of the acquisition in May, the union was about to begin negotiating a new contract with Kunzler. The negotiations began later that month with Clemens and the Local 152 representatives tried to keep the company from moving its production out of the Lancaster plant.
The union filed an unfair labor charge against the company to the National Relations Labor Board last week, following news of the closure. Local 152 accused Clemens of failing to provide information the union requested in June about the acquisition, production transfer and the pending facility sale.
Local 152 also accused Clemens of unfair labor practices, saying the company had no intention of bargaining and were retaliating against the union members by transferring production to another facility.
“The Company's delays, inconsistent positions, and refusal to provide relevant information to the Union is completely unacceptable and belie the Company's assertion that it is an honest broker attempting to preserve jobs for the workforce in Lancaster,” Local 152 President Dan Ross Jr. said in an Oct. 7 letter to Clemens President Brad Clemens.
The two parties met again on Wednesday and Clemens offered two weeks of severance pay for employees who stay until operations cease, Local 152 said on its website. However, the union did not accept the offer.
