TRENTON, Ga. — Tough times got tougher Thurday in this Northwest Georgia city.

Dade County’s largest employer, Shaw Industries, announced it will close the local yarn spinning mill by Thanksgiving, putting 440 workers out of a job.

“People are going to have to start growing gardens, raising chickens for eggs and eating wild meat,” said Brenda Gass, who with her husband Dewayne owns D&B Custom Powder Coating in Trenton.

Counting aunts, cousins and others, the couple have “eight or 10 kinfolk that work over there,” Mrs. Gass said about Shaw’s Plant No. 76, a spun yarn facility that supplies the floor coverings industry.

For most local folks, it’s known as Trenton Spinning Mills.

“We’ve already had two people call today looking for a job, but we are small (three employees) and can’t offer anything right now,” Mrs. Gass said. “If we can get some of the VW businesses’ work, we could put at least 12 or 15 to work automatically and maybe more. That’s what we are hoping for to keep Trenton going.”

Losing the largest employer in a county of just more than 15,000 is a blow to the local economy. But efforts involving the Dade Industrial Development Authority, and the county and city governments were under way to offer tax relief for the yarn plant even as the closure was announced.

“Our collective work to keep the Shaw plant open in Trenton was much less about taxes than it always was about people and jobs,” said Peter Cevelli, chairman of the Dade Industrial Authority. “The people of our community are our highest priority.”

Local and state officials and agencies, along with Shaw, are committed to offering assistance to those who will soon be without jobs. Among those services will be training, counseling, help in filing unemployment claims and assisting with family support services.

“I’m kind of stuck and really don’t know what I’m going to do now,” said Jonathan Scoggins, a 27-year-old mill worker who has worked at plant for two years. “It’s very discouraging.”

Mr. Scoggins said Shaw Industries is one of the best places to work in Dade County and one of the better paying factories with wage rates from $10 to $19 an hour.

“This is a great loss to a small community,” he said Thursday after learning of the plant closing. “A lot of the people in Trenton work here.”

Sassy Hamilton, who works at the local McDonald’s restaurant, said customers were stunned and upset Thursday morning.

“People were in ugly moods because they’d been laid off,” she said.

“Girls coming through, crying on their cell phones saying they didn’t know how they were going to feed their kids, and here is Christmas right around the corner,”

Employees told her they had no warning the plant might close, Ms. Hamilton said.

“It is devastating for them. I felt bad,” said the fat food shop employee. “Even though they make more and have benefits, now they are out of a job and I’m still working. People still have to eat.”

Comments