Hundreds of workers laid off from the former paper mill in Chillicothe will soon get severance checks as part of the terms of the deal struck with the facility’s former owner.
Sen. Bernie Moreno told reporters Friday that the average worker will get roughly $2,000 each. The money represents $1 million of the $5.5 million that HIG Capital, a private equity firm that owned the mill, pledged to set aside from the proceeds it made selling the paper mill to its new owner.
The exact amount each worker will get varies, and could range as high as around $5,000. Union leaders came up with the distribution formula, with more experienced workers getting a larger amount.
The money should go out soon – once the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, a nonprofit chosen to administer the severance money, contacts the 569 eligible workers and gets their tax information.
Moreno said the payment doesn’t make up for the loss workers experienced following HIG Capital’s decision to close the mill.
“They were screwed over,” Moreno said. “Now, does this make them whole? Absolutely not. But it’s something that’s not nothing.”
Moreno shared the update with reporters and local officials on Friday, exactly one year after Moreno and other state Republicans held a rally in Chillicothe shortly after HIG Capital announced its plans to close the mill within 60 days.
The mill’s closure and eventual sale – which happened under pressure from Moreno and the Trump administration – got widespread media attention last year as an example of continued manufacturing decline in the Rust Belt that’s become a typical story in small-town Ohio. A short documentary was even produced.
The company, citing declining demand for the specialty paper the mill produced, initially announced last year that it would close the mill in two months. But under pressure from Moreno, it announced it would remain open for the rest of 2025. It later broke that pledge and closed in August. Eight-hundred workers lost their jobs.
The facility is now owned by U.S. Medical Glove, a medical glove manufacturing company, and has hired back around 150 people. The gloves made at the plant will be sold to the U.S. government, although Moreno said Friday that the bureaucratic process of finalizing that supply contract has been going slowly.
“We’re at the three-yard line,” Moreno said.
He also said the rest of the $5.5 million will be distributed in 2030, which will translate to larger checks. The company agreed to pay the first tranche up front, with the rest coming “contingent upon the resolution of specific post-closing conditions.”
Moreno also touted how his focus on the plant, and his harsh criticism of its owners, show a new strain of the Republican Party under the political shift that occurred after President Donald Trump was elected in 2016.
“The new model is a Republican Party that, while being extraordinarily pro-business, is more importantly, that’s extraordinarily pro-worker,” said Moreno, who was elected in 2024 alongside Trump.
Former union leader offers more skeptical version
Moreno met with other local officials in Chillicothe on Friday at the former union hall for the United Steelworkers chapter that used to represent the mill’s workers. He spoke with reporters there afterward.
Timothy Jenkins, the former vice-president of the union that represented the paper mill workers, was among those who met with Moreno. In his separate comments to reporters, he offered a more skeptical version of events.
Jenkins, a former mill worker, described himself as now helping wind down the union, including selling the hall where Friday’s meeting took place. He said about 125 to 150 people now work at the medical glove plant. Of those, 90% previously worked at the paper mill, he said.
The plant likely will staff up to 250 people once glove manufacturing gets going, he said.
But none of the employees at the new plant are union workers, Jenkins said.
Jenkins said the company didn’t bring back any former union leaders to work at the new plant, which he said was a “little odd” and an apparent expression of anti-union sentiment by the new owners.
Still, he said the plant’s new workers say they’re happy with their new jobs, and they’re making “good money for the most part.”
But, he said, “I’m sure they’re still a little scared of what’s going to happen, if it’s
going to stay.”
As for the $4.5 million, Jenkins said he isn’t sure if the company’s former owner will end up paying it. The money will get paid only if there aren’t any remaining liabilities on the site after accounting for things like pollution clean-up, EPA fines or infrastructure damage.
“It doesn’t sound like it’s completely our money,” Jenkins said.
