Former workers of Townsends, the Delaware-based poultry processing company that filed for bankruptcy in late 2010, have been awarded a settlement that will pay 859 North Carolina employees for unpaid vacation time.
 
The settlement awards $157,000 to the company's Pittsboro and Siler City workers. The workers were represented in a class action lawsuit by the N.C. Justice Center and the Delaware law firm Margolis Edelstein.
 
Townsends filed for bankruptcy in December 2010 and closed its operations two months later.

The company's North Carolina assets were then acquired by a Ukrainian billionaire, Oleg Bakhmatyuk, for $24.9 million in February 2011.

Omtron, the U.S. shell corporation Bakhmatyuk created, spent $7 million upgrading the Siler City plant. But Omtron abruptly announced in late July that it would close the facilities in Siler City and Mocksville by Oct. 4 and lay off 1,156 workers.

At the time, Townsends also had contracts with nearly 200 chicken farmers in Chatham, Moore, Randolph and Harnett counties.

Omtron still owns the Townsends facilities.

The $157,000 settlement will be distributed among the workers based on how much vacation time they were owed by the company.

Any workers who worked for the Siler City or Pittsboro Townsends plants and lost their jobs between January 5 and February 25, 2011, were not paid owed vacation pay, and have not received a settlement payment should contact Jessica Rocha at the NC Justice Center at 866-446-8398.

The new Ukrainian owners of the North Carolina operations of chicken processor Townsends informed Siler City officials Thursday that they plan to close all the company’s facilities in the state by Oct. 1.

The move, which would put roughly 1,200 people in Mocksville and Siler City out of work and terminate contracts with hundreds of chicken farmers, comes just five months after a Ukrainian billionaire, Oleg Bakhmatyuk, paid $24.9 million to buy Townsends North Carolina assets out of bankruptcy.

As recently as March, an executive of Omtron, the U.S. shell corporation created by Bakhmatyuk, expressed optimism that the company could turn the operations around through cost-cutting and by ramping up exports of dark meat.

David Purtle, Omtron’s CEO and a former Tyson Foods executive, said this morning that Bakhmatyuk decided that he didn’t see a long-term future in the business.

“He just decided to shut it down and take his losses and go on,” Purtle said. “He just didn’t like the environment in this country and the lack of discipline that the poultry industry had.”

Townsends, the chicken processor whose North Carolina assets were bought by a Ukrainian billionaire earlier this year, is laying off 145 employees at one of its facilities in Siler City.

The company filed a notice Monday with the N.C. Department of Commerce under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

The WARN notice said the layoffs amount to half the employees at the plant located a 1101 E. Third St. in Siler City. The layoffs will take place between July 1 and July 7, according to the WARN notice.

Townsends employs about 1,200 people in Chatham County and has contracts with hundreds of chicken farmers in Chatham and surrounding counties. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, and its assets were subsequently auctioned.

The North Carolina operations were acquired for $24.9 million by Omtron, a U.S. shell corporation created by Oleg Bakhmatyuk, a Ukrainian businessman who owns food, transportation, real estate and financial companies.

David Purtle, Omtron's CEO, did not immediately return a call this morning seeking comment.

In March, an adviser to the new owner, George Kikvadze, declined to rule out the need for layoffs.

"Our goal right now is to save as many jobs [as we can] and the way we can do that is by making the business as competitive as possible, " he said.