U.S. Postal Service contractor Matheson Flight Extenders (MFE), which operates 44 mail sorting and terminal handling services across the country, filed paperwork this week stating that it plans to cut more than 660 jobs at two of its facilities in Atlanta and in Brandywine, Maryland, by Oct. 15.
According to MFE’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notices filed in Georgia and Maryland on Wednesday, the company will eliminate 335 jobs in Atlanta and 327 in Brandywine.
WARN notices are required under federal law for companies to provide employees 60 days’ notice of a possible plant closure or mass layoff.
In the WARN letter, MFE cites “mass layoff, no recall” as the reason for the permanent layoffs of its forklift operators, maintenance and material handlers, supervisors and managers at the two locations.
MFE and Matheson Postal Services are wholly owned subsidiaries of Matheson Trucking, headquartered in Sacramento, California. The family-owned entities, founded by Robert and Carole Matheson in 1962, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2022.
One month after the bare bones petition was filed, attorneys for the Postal Service alleged in court filings that the Matheson entities filing for bankruptcy was about “renegotiating their contracts” with the government agency.
At the time of its bankruptcy filing, the Postal Service stated that the Matheson companies had 54 mail contracts. MFE was associated with 44 of the contracts with the Postal Service.
MFE also operates 38 small to midsize facilities that “act as an interface between air and truck transport of mail and packages, referred to as terminal handling services,” according to court filings.
Two sticking points in court filings between MFE and the Postal Service were over the two STC facilities in Atlanta and Brandywine that were hit with WARN notices of permanent layoffs this week.
“MFE has stated that it ‘currently estimates it has incurred reimbursable costs from the [Postal Service] of approximate $24 million’ associated with the Atlanta, Georgia, and Brandywine, Maryland STC facilities,” court documents stated.
As of publication, Muguet Cocharan, chief people officer of Matheson Inc., declined to comment on the permanent layoffs at the two facilities and if more layoffs are expected.
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