The Mayfield candle factory destroyed last month by a tornado has filed paperwork saying it won’t reopen the facility and will lay off some employees.
Mayfield Consumer Products said in a January 10 filing under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act that it plans to shift some workers to a nearby plant that will open soon, news outlets reported.
The company said in the filing that 250 of the 501 people employed at the Mayfield plant will be offered positions at the plant in Hickory, about 10 miles away. The new facility will be “up and running as soon as practical,” according to the notice. Those not transferred would be permanently laid off, the notice said.
A spokesman for Mayfield Consumer Products told the Courier Journal in a statement Friday that the company will offer jobs to all who received termination notices and that outreach is ongoing.
Eight factory workers died when a tornado leveled the facility on December 10.
A class-action lawsuit was filed last month against the company on behalf of workers allegedly told they would be fired if they left work ahead of the deadly tornadoes.
The Associated Press
