Job fair planned for laid-off United Furniture workers
NCWorks and DavidsonWorks of Davidson County are hosting a job and resource fair Wednesday, December 7 morning in response to recent abrupt layoffs by United Furniture in the Triad, including an upholstery plant in Lexington and a warehouse in Linwood.
The event will be held at DavidsonWorks/NCWorks Career Center, 220 E. First Ave. Ext., at the corner of Church St. and East First Ave. in Lexington from 9 a.m. to noon.
Some of the employers who will be on hand include Hollywood Bed and Springs, Olon Industries, Valendrawers, Piedmont Candy, Westrock, Ashley Furniture, Best Logistics and Egger Wood Products.
These companies are ready to make offers, so job seekers are advised to come prepared to fill out applications, hand out resumes and even do on-the-spot interviews, said Chris Waugh, business and industry manager of DavidsonWorks.
If jobseekers need help with resumes or interviewing skills before the event, they can go to the NCWorks Career Center or call (336) 242-2065.
Waugh said her office would normally have a 60-day notice of a large layoff and put together a rapid response team with a larger number of employers but local job placement groups wanted to offer something immediately since the laid-off workers had no notice.
“We’re doing something small scale now, but if we get a big turnout, we’ll probably have a bigger event next week at the [Davidson-Davie] community college,” she noted.
“There are lots and lots of job openings. This is geared to the United workers but it’s open to any job seeker.”
Waugh said her office has been told about 300 people lost their jobs at the Lexington upholstery plant and the warehouse in Linwood, with the majority of those at the manufacturing plant. The Lexington plant, which opened in 2010, is located at 100 United Furniture Dr, just off Highway 64 East, and the Linwood facility is located at 3979 Old Linwood Rd.
Other facilities in the Triad include those in Winston-Salem, High Point and Archdale.
Mississippi-based United Furniture, a major manufacturer of stationary upholstered furniture, recliners and sofa sleepers, as well as a large importer of wooden case goods, has been marketed under the Lane Furniture brand since the company bought the rights to that brand name five years ago.
The company abruptly laid off about 2,700 employees at manufacturing plants, offices and warehouses in Mississippi, North Carolina and California via emails and text messages just before midnight Nov. 21, a few days before Thanksgiving.
Furniture Today, a High Point publication that covers the home furnishings industry, published the following message that was sent to employees:
“At the instruction of the Board of Directors of United Furniture Industries, Inc., and all subsidiaries (the “Company”), we regret to inform you that due to unforeseen business circumstances the Company has been forced to make the difficult decision to terminate the employment of all its employees, effective immediately, on November 21, 2022, with the exception of over-the-road drivers that are out on delivery,” the firing notice stated. “Your layoff from the Company is expected to be permanent and all benefits will be terminated immediately without provision of COBRA.”
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 is a law that mandates an insurance program that gives some employees the ability to continue health insurance coverage after leaving employment.
Philip Hearn, an attorney in Mississippi, is representing several employees in that state who have already sued the company for violating the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The WARN Act requires companies with 100 employees or more to give employees 60-days of written notice ahead of a plant closing and mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site.
Company officials have not returned phone calls or emails about why the more than two-decades old company shut down its facilities so suddenly but over the summer United Furniture fired its chief executive, chief financial officer and executive vice president of sales, according to Furniture Today. David Belford, owner of the company, had quarreled with the board of directors and bankers about whether to file for bankruptcy just days before the company shutdown and has not been heard from since, according to the trade publication.
