Bedford County plant lays off workers after taking state money

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Employees at a plant run by one of Bedford County's biggest employers say their former employer, National Pen Corporation, laid off more than 150 employees on Tuesday.

The layoffs came as companies across Tennessee forecast major declines in earnings spurred by the COVID-19 crisis.

National Pen manufactures pens and other promotional items with logos of client companies printed on them.

The Shelbyville Bedford County Chamber of Commerce says at one point, National Pen was the area's fourth-largest employer, supplying 500 jobs. Employees of the plant say the plant's staffing fluctuates depending on the season, with about 350 workers employed at the plant at the beginning of this week, before the layoffs.

Several former employees say the company told them on Tuesday they were permanently laid off, and that their jobs would be moving to National Pen facilities in Mexico and Jamaica.

NewsChannel 5 received a copy of an internal email written by Peter Kelly, the CEO of National Pen, confirming the details of the layoffs. The email was sent to NewsChannel 5 by an employee who requested anonymity because they were not at liberty to speak on behalf of the company.

Many employees said they were expecting some kind of job change due to the coronavirus, but not a permanent layoff of this scale.

"We thought we were going to be furloughed," said Chris Lindsey, who had worked for National Pen since 2016. "We thought they’d just send us home so we could draw unemployment for a few weeks, then they’d bring us back. That’s what they did in their other facility in Ireland."

The permanent layoff is a blow to the company's former employees in Bedford County, who say National Pen should remain loyal to them after business picks back up.

"Once we have a few weeks where the coronavirus is not the main focus on the country anymore, business is going to come back," Lindsey said. "And we should be the ones who are taking care of that."

Employees say they also have health and safety concerns with National Pen following the layoff. While employees say the company had implemented social distancing rules at work -- in accordance with CDC guidelines -- those rules appear to have gone out the window during the layoff. Photos obtained by NewsChannel 5 taken from inside while managers were making the announcement, show dozens of employees crowded together, not observing social distancing guidelines.

"You’re talking 100 people standing up on each other," said Josh Wilson, another former employee. "There’s some there that have health problems that didn’t even need to be even around that.

The layoffs come after the company used taxpayer money to bring on hundreds of new workers.

According to state records, two years ago National Pen received $149,800 from the state under Tennessee's FastTrack Job Training Assistance Program. The company received the state grant in exchange for creating 214 new jobs, as part of an expansion of its facility in Shelbyville. The company used that state money to help train those new employees, at least some of whom the company likely laid off this week.

"We were a number, we were used," Wilson said.

NewsChannel 5 asked National Pen to comment on the layoffs, the social distancing concerns during the layoffs and if any employees trained with the state grant money were among those laid off this week.

A spokesperson for National Pen would neither confirm the exact number of layoffs Thursday, nor answer any of the other specific questions posed to them by NewsChannel 5. Instead, the company provided this statement from it's CEO, Peter Kelly:

"The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the economic climate around the world, forcing businesses of all sizes, including ours, to make the most difficult decisions. National Pen has been in operation for nearly 40 years in Shelbyville and we are grateful to all of our employees, past and present, for their hard work and dedication. We have taken unfortunate, but necessary steps to reorganize our business in a way that minimizes permanent job loss and ensures the strength of National Pen in a post-pandemic world. We remain committed to this community and continue to consider Shelbyville a key strategic fulfillment location and our global center of Research and Development."

As of Thursday evening, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development had not yet posted the notice that companies are required to file with the state when they announce major layoffs,Which would confirm the number of jobs lost in the layoff.