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371T of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers, said “The handwriting was kind of on the wall.”
The plant, which had employed as many as 5,000 people during the 1940s and 50s, had seen its workforce decline to approximately 1,300 people, who commute from as far as West Virginia and Western Maryland.
But as the world’s largest producer of rayon fiber, the closing of the plant will have an effect not just on the residents and businesses of Warren County, but nationwide as well.
The plant produces a carbon fiber product which is used on the space shuttle. According to Gerald Smith, solid rocket booster project manager at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Avtex is the only contractor which produces the product. Mr. Smith said that the shuttle program has 12 sets of the compound in reserve, blit that there is, as yet, no replacement contractor available.
Mr. Gregg said at the news conference that the shuttle program would need to find another source of the fiber before next May, when the current stock runs out.
The action by Avtex management is not covered by the recently enacted federal plant closing bill, which requires that workers be given 60 days notice of a decision to close a plant.
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