The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
PPE CONTRACT
150 Stanfield’s staff laid off
TRURO — Approximately 150 employees with Stanfields Ltd., have been laid off after the company was unsuccessful in renewing its contract with the federal government to produce non-medical gowns for the fight against COVID.
“Everybody associated with sewing gowns is temporarily laid off,” said company CEO Jon Stanfield on Friday. “I'm disappointed in this decision, obviously, that we're not participating in this project,” he said. “I'm upset for our people, I'm upset for our community.”
Shortly after the pandemic hit Canada last March, Stanfield approached the federal government with a proposal to produce non-medical gowns for health authorities in a number of provinces. That provided jobs for people who had just been laid off at the plant, along with new jobs after the plant later returned to normal production.
But the gown production came to a screeching halt late this week after Stanfields was notified by the federal government it was not among the nine successful bidders for gown production moving forward.
“We received a letter from Public Works this week that we were not one of those (successful) tenders,” Stanfield said.
Although he had been informed the government would be using a tendering process this year, Stanfield said he believed his company would be included for approval based on its current operations, the retooling and financial investments that had gone into preparing for gown production and its production track record.
“I was encouraging them to extend the contract with those manufacturers that they deemed stragegic. Who had the capabilies, who had the longevity, who had the commitment to investing in people and equipment … and so on, to just extend current contracts.”
Based on the belief that his company would receive at least a portion of the new contracts, Stanfield said his company has invested about $1.5-million in new equipment, purchased enough fabric to produce another five million gowns and continued to produce finished garments to stay ahead of deadline.
“So our readiness to support the tender award was really high, with people, with training, with equipment, with fabric prepositioning,” he said. “But there's no reason that I can understand why we would be shut out, right. Why we wouldn't be doing anything for the federal government on a go-forward basis.”
Cumberland-colchester MP Lenore Zann said she too is “upset and disappointed” about the government decision.
“I've worked hard to get the contract and keep the contract for Stanfields and to keep those jobs for my constituents. I feel terrible for these hardworking people in our community. It's not an easy time right now and I'm sure they'd prefer to keep working rather than collect IA or CSRB,” she said. “I would absolutely have preferred to continue delivering this great service but the second go-round was a free and competitive bidding process.” Dave Ritcey, Conservative MLA for Truro-bible Hill-millbrook-salmon River, said he feels the federal Liberals have done a disservice to the company, its employees and the community, after Stanfields was among the first companies to step up when the government didn't have enough personal protective equipment in place after the pandemic struck.
“By ignoring Atlantic Canada, I feel the federal government is letting them down,” Ritcey said. “My understanding is that bidders in other provinces were successful. I will be reaching out to the government and the local MP to ask for details of this contract.”
Stanfield said employees connected with the company's branded products are not impacted by the current layoffs.