Kimberly-Clark Corp. will invest $30 million to expand and improve its Berkeley Mill, a nonwovens manufacturing facility in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The plant produces materials for the company’s North American adult and feminine care brands, including Depend, Poise and U by Kotex.
The two-year North Carolina project will expand the Berkeley Mill’s production capacity and efficiency, and add 14 new jobs, the company said in a release this week.
The announcement comes nearly four months after K-C said it plans to close its Neenah Nonwovens facility.
The two moves have nothing to do with each other, a spokeswoman said.
“The planned investment in our Berkeley facility is unrelated to the proposed plans in Wisconsin,” K-C spokeswoman Andrea Hopkins said in an email Thursday, responding to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin questions about the investment.
“The company previously announced it’s committed to American manufacturing, and that it planned to make significant capital investments into its ongoing U.S. operations,” she said.
K-C announced Jan. 31 that it planned to close its Neenah Nonwovens facility in 18 months, or around mid-2019, along with its Cold Spring Facility in Fox Crossing. The two closures would eliminate a total of 600 jobs, and were part of the company's global restructuring program designed to eliminate up to 5,500 jobs and close or sell 10 plants.
The closure date of the Cold Spring facility was not announced.
Hopkins confirmed Thursday that the company is still engaged in union bargaining at the Cold Spring facility, which will play a role in decisions going forward.
“We will share additional information related to these proposed plans when it is appropriate to do so,” she said.
Wisconsin’s legislature, meanwhile, had proposed a package of incentives for K-C, similar to the one offered to Foxconn in Racine County, if K-C would keep the two Fox Cities plants open.
Assembly Bill 963 passed in the Assembly in February, but stalled in the Senate in March, in part because senators said they didn’t know if K-C would even take the deal. United Steelworkers called on the state senate in April to take an immediate vote on the subsidy package.
State Sen. Roger Roth (R-Appleton), a co-author of the bill, said in April he would push legislators to come back for an “extraordinary session” to vote.
The senator's spokeswoman, Angela Roid, said on Thursday that Roth was giving the company breathing room in its negotiations with the union.
"We're on hold waiting for Kimberly-Clark to make its next move," she said.
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