Workers react to NEMF closing

Shocking. Hard to hear. No words.

The statements make up only a small sampling of local employees’ reaction to New England Motor Freight’s announcement Monday of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and plans to shut down its operations.

Like many of her co-workers, Christina Dixon, a truck driver for two years out of NEMF’s Lehighton hub on Mahoning Drive East, first heard the news on social media. By the time she got back from her afternoon run, an official company letter was in her hand.

“It was shocking,” Dixon said. “I don’t know if anyone could have expected this. My husband drove for them for 11 years. We both have no income now. We just built a house locally a year-and-a-half ago. It was nice to have a job close to home and a 10-minute commute.”

NEMF, based in Elizabeth, New Jersey, employs around 200 at its Lehighton terminal. The company has been a fixture locally since 1986 after it bought the former Interstate Dress Carriers facility.

Dixon and other employees confirmed NEMF told them this would be their last week on the job. Benefits will extend until mid-April. The company’s severance package will be the greater dollar amount of whatever vacation the employee has left or two weeks pay.

“That doesn’t come to much,” Dixon, who worked 12- to 14-hour days for NEMF, said.

A local NEMF dockworker for more than two years, Thomas James Kelly had trouble putting his initial reaction into words.

“There are none,” he said Tuesday morning. “I have a house to pay for. I have a 9-month-old. It’s tough to hear.”

Kelly’s father is a 15-year NEMF employee, and neither man had any inkling of the company’s plans to shut down.

“The job didn’t seem like it was going anywhere, or at least anytime soon,” Kelly said.

Bankruptcy

The Chapter 11 paperwork was filed in a Newark bankruptcy court on Monday.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company reported assets of $100 million to $500 million and debts between $50 million and $100 million and $59 million owed to four banks as the company’s largest unsecured creditors.

Last year NEMF ranked as the 17th-largest “less-than-truckload” carrier in the country with revenue over $400 million. According to the state Department of Labor and Industry, it was in the top 25 largest employers in Carbon County for 2018.

In a letter to the workers of NEMF, President and Chief Operating Officer Thomas W. Connery wrote, “The costs of running an asset-based trucking company have soared; with labor and benefits consuming an ever larger portion of revenue.

“After much discussion as well as consultation with outside financial advisers, it was concluded that it does not make sense to continue operations to support a business in which our margins continue to shrink, thereby resulting in significant financial losses,” Connery wrote.

In a message to the Times News, Laura Anthony said employees who haven’t been with NEMF longer than five years were told the pension they paid into no longer exists to them because they were not employed there long enough.

“I know companies can’t always stay afloat, however the company had to know this was coming for a while now, and to give no notice to all the employees who put their all into a job is just down right wrong,” Anthony said.

Job training

While the initial shock was angering to some, Kelly said he loved his job. No announcement, he added, could change that.

“I don’t have that backlash that some people will over this,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been able to do the things I did in the last two-and-a-half years without (NEMF).”

Word of NEMF’s announcement, which was made public late Monday, spread quickly on a local level.

Joe Sebelin, executive director of the Pocono Counties Workforce Investment Area, saw a news story online Tuesday morning and immediately contacted the Carbon County commissioners, who were already aware of the situation.

From there, he contacted Rich Parry, who works in Rapid Response Services for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

“He will contact the company,” Sebelin said, “and go from there with offering assistance to the employees.”

A Rapid Response specialist will pull together a team of experts to provide workers with information about and access to services including unemployment insurance, health and pension benefits, job search activities, education services, training programs and more.

Carbon County CareerLink will also provide services to employees.

Kelly is confident he’ll be able to find another job.

“There are a lot of jobs around,” he said. “I’m not someone who needs $90,000 a year. I’m honestly an average Joe. I’ll take it with a grain of salt.”

Dixon and her husband will both go on the job hunt and she anticipates their next employment will be further away from home.

“The downside is it will probably be at least a 45-minute commute,” Dixon said. “Until then we’re just trying to make sure the bills get paid. I’m especially worried for the families who have kids. What happens to them?”

Ten of NEMF’s subsidiaries will also be shutting down.