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Mayor Bernard Orders Crane Stationery Plant To Meet Guidelines To Reopen

A sign that says "Crane" stands outside of a brick building
Josh Landes
/
WAMC
The Crane Stationery Plant in North Adams, Massachusetts

The mayor of North Adams, Massachusetts has issued a list of conditions required for a paper company to reopen its plant in the city, just days after it announced sweeping layoffs next month.

It’s been a whirlwind week for the 229 employees of the 220-year-old Crane Stationery Plant in North Adams. Last week, 85% of the workforce learned via email that after June 19th, they would be laid off, sending shockwaves through a tightly knit community.

Now, as the plant’s owner – Cohoes, New York-based Mohawk Paper – attempts to reopen the facility, those same employees are trying to make sense of conflicting information.

“They sent out an email last week and said, the following people need to report to work on Monday, May 4th," said Michael Comeau, a 24-year veteran of the plant – and one of the employees to be let go this summer. “Then they sent out the email saying you have the option now to come in on Monday if you want. If you don’t want to come in, you’re still going to get your weekly pay, but if you want to come in, please respond back to this email.”

It didn’t end there.

“And then the third email they sent out Sunday is, nobody report Monday while we try to figure out scheduling," said Comeau. "And then we’re all seeing the reports in the paper and on Facebook about going back and forth with the mayor and about the safety concerns – everybody is very confused.”

“There had been some confusion going into the weekend about Crane’s status as an essential service," said North Adams Mayor Tom Bernard. “The company maintained that having applied to the state and not heard anything, in either way, that provided them with the ability to move forward. Messages that I heard and others heard suggested that no, they were not essential and they should not be open. And so there was confusion between the company, me, the employees, of what Crane’s status was.”

Bernard says a state employee from the Division of Labor Standards looked into that question.

“Crane Stationery, by supplying print services to legal, medical and energy businesses – which is to say, essential services – is essential, and may be open subject to the maintenance of appropriate precautions,” said the mayor.

Bernard issued an order Sunday saying that the plant could only reopen if it strictly did work relating to those essential services.

“We asked them to take responsibility for identifying how they will identifying how they will, first of all, institute safety precautions and what their work plan is to ensure that they are only doing essential COVID-19 related work and that they submit to an inspection from the health and building inspectors to ensure that the things that they said they were going to do they have done and that they’re able to institute – or they have instituted and can maintain those precautions," he told WAMC.

In an email to Bernard on May 2nd, Crane Stationery’s Chief Revenue Officer Bart Robinson said that the plant had intended to open on Monday, citing orders from “medical professionals and medical support companies, energy and environment companies, law offices performing essential work and advisory companies that support small business.” Robinson added that while many of the plant’s orders could be classified as non-essential, they could be completed and delivered safely, and said that Crane does work for Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, Karen.

For employees like Comeau, the push to reopen hits a sour note.

“To me, safety rules 100% over any kind of production, work, dollars, anything. Safety comes first," he told WAMC. "So it sounds like right now that they’re kind of walking past the safety part of it and just more concerned with the work.”

He says confusion reigns among the plant’s employees.

“They already terminated us but they’re still paying us, so they might need us, they might not need us," said Comeau. "People are saying, should we be going looking for a job? I know they said they’re going to keep 15% of the workforce. How do we know if we’re in that or not? I don’t know. Are you looking for a job, Mike? Well not yet, because I don’t know if I’m going to be part of that 15%, you know? So it’s kind of like just – everybody’s just in a stagnant mold right, just waiting.”

Mohawk Paper did not respond to request for comment on this story by airtime.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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