TURNERS FALLS -- Two men who worked at the now-shuttered Southworth Paper plant sued their former employer in federal court claiming unpaid wages and benefits because the company laid them off last month without giving the 60-day notice required by law.
The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, seeks compensation not only for the two men named as plaintiffs but for all 120 people who worked at Southworth in Turners Falls and Agawam when the company closed abruptly Aug. 30.
Attorney John P. Connor of Stobierski & Connor in Greenfield said employees did not get the 60-day notice of a plant closing required by the federal WARN, or Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, Act. He represents the workers along with attorney Allison K. Murphy of the same firm.
Lawyers for the two men also allege violations of the Federal Labor Standards act and of state fair wage laws.
The employees were also not paid wages and salary they'd earned before the shutdown, according to Connor. Employees are supposed to be paid in full on the date they were terminated.
"They literally were working for free," Connor said.
Workers have also received notices that their health care benefits were cancelled and they are not able to participate in the federal COBRA program, which would have let them pay their way and continue on their health plan.
"Rarely are these kind of closing unforeseen by the people in power," Connor said. "I have a hard time believing that one day they were viable and the next day they were not."
Southworth had 60 employees at the mill in Turners Falls, and another 60 in Agawam for a total of 120.
Connor said the suit might become a class-action lawsuit as more employees step forward.
Connor said he's heard from nearly 20 employees at the Turners Falls plant. he hasn't heard from anyone at the Agawam facility, but he expects those workers to start coming forward.
Both employees worked in engineering at the Turners Falls plant.
Plaintiff Roger Matthews of Swanzy, New Hampshire, worked at the Turners Falls mill as a plant engineer making $18.48 an hour for a 40-hour workweek which works out to $38,438 a year.
Plaintiff Timothy Gignilliat of Oxford, Massachusetts, was the chief engineer with an annual salary of approximately $75,000 a year.
Named as defendants are David Southworth of Springfield and company executives John S. Leness, David J. Mika and Chris Childs.
Connor said the law makes defendants in these cases personally liable for the unpaid wages and benefits in these cases.
The Southworth Co., which traced its history to 1839 when Wells Southworth built a mill to manufacture fine papers in West Springfield, shut down abruptly Aug. 30 with most employees told they no longer had jobs and sent home that day. Only a few workers stayed working for a few more days to handle material in the Agawam warehouse.
In its history, Southworth made office paper used by Abraham Lincoln, had recently been doing business as Turners Falls Paper and as Paperlogic. It had a mill in Turners Falls and a warehosue and paper converting plant in Agawam. Southworth also owned a subsidiary in Seattle that made greeting cards and gift boxes.
In August, David Southworth said he no longer was an executive with the company and only a minority owner.
In 2012, Southworth Co. sold its venerable brand of business paper to Neenah Paper of Wisconsin. Production of some paper made at Southworth's mill in Turners Falls had shifted to Neenah's mills.
Southworth kept producing paper for very specialized markets, including paper for watercolor artists and paper for laminated countertops and furniture. The mill was experimenting with nanofibers, tiny wood-pulp fibers that can be used to create high performance products for the food or medical industries.
The Turners Falls mill was the last of what was once a thriving paper industry driven by hydropower from the Connecticut River.
Southworth bought the mill in Turners Falls, once Esleeck Paper Co., in 2006. For generations the Esleeck mill made onion-skin paper for typewriters.
Southworth Paper sued by former workers by Jim Kinney on Scribd