MILLIKEN TO CLOSE GAFFNEY, S.C., PLANT
NEW YORK — Milliken & Co. said last week that in late June it would begin closing its Gaffney Manufacturing Plant, in Gaffney, S.C. The company said the approximately 190 workers employed at the plant would be offered positions at Milliken’s eight other facilities in the area.
Gaffney, which makes a variety of apparel and industrial fabric yarns, has been in operation since the 1890s, according to a spokesman for Milliken, based in Spartanburg, S.C.
The spokesman said the decision was motivated by “the fact that we’ve been unable to offset the impact of foreign imports.”
He added that this was the first plant Milliken has closed since 1995, when it shut a mill in Spartanburg. The company operates 65 locations in the Southeast.
The plant’s last day of operation has not yet been determined, but it will be before the end of the year, the company said.
The spokesman added, “We had hoped and planned to be able to continue our operations at the Gaffney Plant. However, the continued growth of imported textile and apparel products into the U.S. from China, the Far East, Mexico and the Caribbean has brought that to a tragic end.”
Milliken is headed by Roger Milliken, a longtime advocate of domestic textile and apparel manufacturing.