BATAVIA, NY -- There could be as many as 82 layoffs coming for workers at a 151-year-old shoe company in Genesee County.
PW Minor, on Treadeasy Avenue in Batavia, filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice with the state Department of Labor on Monday. The document says between 42 and 82 employees could be affected by a possible plant closing or possible layoff.
According to the The Daily News out of Batavia, employees were told on Monday to go home for a week, and company officials said the company is searching for investors for product lines.
Brian Benedict, the company's vice president of sales told The Daily News the layoffs weren't a certainty, and the full number of job reductions, if any, has yet to be determined.
Back in 2015, the company promised to bring 100 jobs back to the Batavia plant that had previously been outsourced to China in exchange for $1.75 million in state tax credits. At that time, the company employed 50 workers at the Genesee County site. Those tax breaks were on top of $449,505 awarded the company by the state in 2014, when the business was purchased by new owners Andrew Young and Peter Zeliff and kept open in Batavia.
The business, founded in 1867 by two brothers who were both Civil War veterans, specializes in comfort shoes and shoes made to accommodate medical needs.
Earlier this year, the company was purchase by Delaware-based investment firm Tidewater + Associates, which says it acquires and builds brands "that are good for people and planet."
PW Minor is the oldest company in Genesee County. According to the company's website, it is also the oldest women's shoe manufacturer in the United States and the second oldest overall.
MCDERMOT@Gannett.com