COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Another plant is closing in Ohio -- in Columbus and it's part of the development near Rickenbacker Airport.
Nearly 150 people are out of work after Spring Air Mattress closed Wednesday, NBC 4's Mike Bowersock reported.
In 2002, Spring Air was given tax abatements to open operations in Central Ohio as part of an effort to create jobs, but according to the city's Department of Development, it never used them.
Calls to the company's Florida headquarters were not returned and according to a local labor attorney, employees may not be left in the dark.
"If you shut down and 50 or more employees lose their job for a certain period of time, generally 30 days or more, then you gotta give people notice, generally 60 days notice of that impeding layoff or alternatively the employer could pay them in pay and benefits for that period of time," said John Marshall, a labor attorney.
There are exceptions, however. The company was working on a management buyout, which could be the detail that keeps the Columbus employees from not only losing their jobs, but losing two months of pay.
"There are certain exceptions under the WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) act, one is if you've got capital financing pending such as a management buyout and giving notice of that might jeopardize the funding or jeopardize the deal," Marshall said.
According to a furniture trade magazine, nine of the company's eleven plants were to close. Only one each in Dallas and Columbus were to stay open, but it appears that didn't happen.
Since 2002, when Spring Air came to Columbus, the city has lost nearly 25 percent of its manufacturing jobs -- more than Ohio as a whole.
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