Uvalde city leaders are scrambling to save 156 jobs after VT Workwear maker Dickies announced plans to close its textiles plant and move production to Mexico and Honduras.
According to a letter sent to the Uvalde mayor’s office, VF Workwear, the parent company of Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Company, will close its Uvalde facility beginning in October. 156 associates will lose their jobs in Uvalde, a town of about 16,000 people.
"To take that blow of 156 jobs is going to be tough and some of these people have been there 25-30 years. They've been working for Dickies a long time," Uvalde Mayor Donald McLaughlin Jr. said.
Mayor McLaughlin sent a letter to the White House asking for attention and assistance as the company begins to part ways with employees in the town. He said he also sent letters to Governor Greg Abbott, Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, as well as Congressman Will Hurd. McLaughlin said the closing of the Uvalde plant will have a major economic impact on the small town.
The letter reads, in part, “The government is one of the largest uniform buyers in the United States. It greatly pains me to learn that those very uniforms are being manufactured in foreign countries, instead of America.”
A spokesperson with VF Corporation shared the following statement with KENS 5:
Throughout the normal course of business, we continually evaluate how and where our resources are deployed to ensure they are allocated to the areas that best enable us to meet the demands of our customers and consumers.
This has led us to make the decision to unwind operations at our cutting facilities in Uvalde, Texas, and transfer the production to other locations, mostly in the western hemisphere, including Mexico. We will wind down operations over the coming months.
Approximately 150 positions in the Uvalde, Texas, facility are being impacted. This location provides cutting operations for our Workwear businesses.
We are grateful for their service and understand that this decision will affect them and their families. We are working to ensure a smooth transition by providing severance and job assistance.