Georgia-Pacific (GP) has sent severance payments to 300 workers it laid off in January 2009 from a plywood mill in Peterman, Alabama, because the company could not say when the mill will reopen reports the Press-Register.
Spokesperson Melodie Ruse said GP made the payments on November 31. She said GP had taken an optimistic view that the market would rebound when it closed the mill, but that the company now believed it would be fairer to the mill’s employees to pay severance and let them get on with their lives.
However, GP is not removing equipment or trying to sell the property, said Ms Ruse.
GP has permanently closed plywood mills in Logansport and Springhill, Louisiana and Fordyce, Arkansas, and has idled plywood mills in Talladega, Alabama; Gloster and Louisville, Mississippi; Whiteville, North Carolina and Cleveland, Texas. The company has reopened a shuttered plywood line in Crossett, Arkansas.
