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May 11, 2007
A South Bend-based supermarket chain's decision to switch label brands will result in more than a hundred layoffs for a Westville distribution center by early June.
Martin's Super Markets announced in late April that it would drop the Our Family brand of products from its shelves.
Those products are distributed by Minnesota-based wholesale distributor Nash Finch Co., from a center it owns in the western LaPorte County town of Westville.
Martin's is the distribution center's largest customer, representing $153 million in volume to Nash Finch.
As a result, Nash Finch said it would have to lay off a significant portion of employees at the center, which it acquired from Roundy's Inc. in February 2005.
At the time, Martin's said it would continue to carry Roundy's products. The chain has since discontinued that brand from its shelves, replacing it with Nash Finch's Our Family label.
Rob Bartels, president and chief executive of Martin's, did not return a call for comment by Thursday's print deadline.
The layoffs will affect union and nonunion employees, the company said.
Of the center's 302 employees, about 225 belong to either the Teamsters or the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said Jerod Warnock, business representative for Teamsters Local 135.
The Teamsters were in contract negotiations for a deal that expired May 1, Warnock said.
He declined to say what impact the layoff announcement would have on the talks, but said workers are now operating under an extension.
"The layoffs will result in employment losses of approximately half the employees in the bargaining unit," Denise Wilson, senior vice president of human resources for Nash Finch, wrote in a letter to Indiana officials.
Those employees will most likely be the lower half of the seniority list in each job classification, Wilson wrote.
Under federal law, companies laying off more than 100 people are required to give notice to state governments.
Nash Finch will finalize the layoff list by mid-May, Wilson said.
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