U.S. Postal Service contractor Matheson Flight Extenders (MFE) filed paperwork Thursday stating that it plans to eliminate 305 jobs and close its sorting facility in Chicopee, Massachusetts, by the end of October, bringing to about 1,000 the total job cuts it has announced in recent days.
This marks the third Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice the Sacramento, California-based company has filed recently. It is also eliminating 335 mail sorting facility jobs in Atlanta and 327 in Brandywine, Maryland.
WARN notices are required under federal law for companies to provide employees 60 days’ notice of a possible plant closure or mass layoff.
Read related article: Postal service contractor cutting 660 jobs
In the WARN letter, obtained by FreightWaves, MFE stated the planned layoff of forklift operators, maintenance staff and material handlers is expected to be permanent.
MFE and Matheson Postal Services are wholly owned subsidiaries of Matheson Trucking. 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 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 Surface Transfer Centers (STC) in Atlanta and Brandywine that were hit with WARN notices of permanent layoffs two weeks ago.
“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.
This is a developing story.
Do you have a news tip to share? Send me an email or message me @cage_writer on X, formerly known as Twitter. Your name will not be used without your permission.
Brian Ferguson
I worked for Matheson in Salt Lake and they never paid us sick leave, what they did instead was give you a warning that you were not to be sick and threatened your job at Matheson. Executive order 13706 clearly states that all contractors of the U. S. Government shall pay their employees up to 56 hours of sick leave per year. Non of us has seen this either from Matheson.
Robert
They say nothing about salt lake City matheson trucking laid off people in salt lake 6 months ago change the name with no benefits they kept my win medical plan of over $450 no way of ever seeing that money again The courts lied to us so did Mark matheson in their bankruptcy procedures they gave us a 20-day notice tell him as we don’t have a day a job no more laid us all off salt lake is no different by law they did not give us a 60 day notice kept all of our benefits
Steven Mays
Was a mail contractor for over 20 years.In 1989 and early 90s Usps contracting officers were informed and knowledgeable to negotiate for a win win contract/ rates for the contractor.Then the older more senior knowledgeable personel retired and like Kenneth said in previous post: the usps quit dealing in good faith and prostituted the contractors. Thankful I was able to sell my company and retire. I don’t hate anyone however I do look forward to some obituaries sooner than others:!Ed Symington Keith Harris Bob Mays
Kenneth
“Postal Service alleged in court filings that the Matheson entities filing for bankruptcy was about “renegotiating their contracts” with the agency.”
That’s pretty ballsy of the USPS to allege that since they’ve been canceling contracts mid-term recently in order to not just renegotiate contracts but to force the incumbent contractor to face a bidding process open to all bidders. Postal contracts are only as good as the 60-day out clause these days. The USPS is not dealing in good faith anymore. If they really ever did. At least a contract stood for something at one time though.