COMMERCE, Ga. — In a national move that rocked the book and publishing world, Baker and Taylor, a more than century-old company, laid off hundreds of employees with no benefits, severance or warning.
Channel 2 Action News has learned the final group of employees at the facility will have their last day on Dec. 22, just a few days before Christmas.
Channel 2’s Audrey Washington covered the news when it was first announced, with the Baker and Taylor plant in Commerce among those affected.
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Now, layoff process documents are out, from publication on Monday.
The Baker and Taylor WARN Notice, a federally required separation alert, was recently publicized and shows more details about what went down when the company laid off 500 employees, 20% of them in Georgia alone.
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One hundred employees at the facility were left without a paycheck, or an idea of what to do next.
Channel 2 Action News was in Commerce and spoke with some of the former employees. They said the news came as a shock.
“I lost it. I bawled, I cried the entire day,” Karli Prater, who is also pregnant, said about the layoffs. “How am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to put food on the table? I can’t do that.”
In the letter sent to state officials on the separations, Baker and Taylor said its Commerce facility would permanently close, resulting in layoffs of 289 workers.
The adjustment happened after “the unforeseen termination of a sale transaction which was intended to convey Baker & Taylor’s assets and operations to a purchase,” but that buyer canceled the deal in late September.
Another financing option to keep operations going was not found, according to the company’s letter to Georgia officials.
When the company informed state officials of the imminent closure on Oct. 6, 213 employees were immediately laid off. A single employee was removed on Oct. 24, and another 75 employees have not yet been separated from the company.
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