by Plus, an update on the Old Hickory Tannery shooting and its aftermath
SALTILLO, Coahuila — Palliser Furniture’s Mexican manufacturing arm operated by Matamoros Holdings ceased operations on Wednesday of last week, according to multiple Spanish-language news sources, resulting in the shutdown of three factories.
The decision ends nearly three decades of production for Palliser in the Mexican state of Coahuila and leaves between 800 and 900 employees waiting on severance payments the company has been slow to pay out in full, according to multiple Spanish-language news accounts.
The shutdown comes two months after the acquisition of Palliser by MotoMotion China, which has yet to comment publicly on either the purchase or the factory shutdowns. The acquisition was effected in late May; the Mexican facility shutdowns occurred on July 28.
According to CE Noticias Financieras’s reporting that cited a statement from Matamoros Holdings, MotoMotion China acquired only the brand name and intellectual property of Palliser, with no interest in keeping the Mexican plants running.
Matamoros Holdings is a manufacturing and assembly company based in Coahuila that has faced significant operational shutdowns, widespread layoffs and labor protests, according to Mexico City news source Proceso.
“Matamoros Holding’s main customer was the Palliser brand,” the statement from Matamoros Holdings reads, translated from Spanish. “However, this brand was sold to a group of companies that decided to acquire only the Palliser brand and its intellectual property, as well as not continue with the manufacture of the brand in the facilities in Mexico.”
Building tensions
Palliser’s employees in Mexico have been unhappy for some time. Workers in Saltillo formed a blockade on a road leading to the plant when the closures were announced. Proceso reported that the blockade shut off Isidro López Zertuche Boulevard north of the city because workers had received no information about their employment status or compensation and because they had seen machinery being taken out of the factories.
Workers began protesting at 8 a.m. on Monday, July 20, by blocking traffic on Isidro López Zertuche Boulevard, marking a month since they said they began receiving less than half their wages, according to multiple news accounts.
“We were originally on Madero Avenue, and they moved us from one location to another week after week, promising plenty of work and telling us there would be no more work stoppages,” said Luis Alejandro, a Palliser Matamoros employee, talking to CE Noticias Financieras. “But the exact opposite happened.”
Subsequent to the blockade, answering one of the workers’ demands, staff from Mexico’s Ministry of Labor visited the facilities to meet with Matamoros executives and a group of the workers. At this meeting, workers learned that the shutdown would occur on Tuesday, July 28, according to reporting both in Telediario and Milenio. They also learned that severance payments would begin that same day.
Some workers said, however, that they had been offered only 70% of what they owed by law, leading to further unrest.
Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Palliser opened a 65,000-square-foot factory adjacent to its existing Saltillo facility in mid-2017, about the same time it acquired Casana. The expansion added 180 jobs. The new plant was Palliser’s fourth in Mexico and, with Winnipeg, its fifth in North America.
No warning
For their part, Coahuila government officials say they were caught off guard by the sale of Palliser to MotoMotion China. Coahuila Secretary of Economic Development Luis Olivares told Spanish-language news outlets that he received no warning of the acquisition or of its potential implications, noting that most Chinese investment in the state has come from companies building operations rather than buying existing ones.
Olivares said the state had been in talks with Palliser executives about the company’s financial troubles as late as early July, hopeful that a potential buyer could preserve the jobs at the Matamoros and Saltillo plants. He said the same challenges that Palliser faced, which included changing U.S. tariff policy and economic uncertainty, had also stalled about 40 other investment projects in the state, according to CE Noticias Financieras’s account.
Palliser’s roots in Coahuila date to 1998, when the company opened its first Mexican plant in Saltillo to take advantage of the region’s manufacturing infrastructure and its access to U.S. markets under NAFTA.
Old Hickory Tannery shooting update
Hickory, N.C. TV station WHKY has reported that Willard Gary Black, co-owner of Old Hickory Tannery in nearby Newton, has been indicted by a Catawba County grand jury for the homicide of his business partner, Robert Roger Arguelles.
Black was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder, according to court records, and he has admitted to police that he shot Arguelles, Newton police say. The gun thought to be the murder weapon was recovered at the scene, the business offices of Old Hickory Tannery.
Business partners since 2018, Black and Arguelles had been in court just hours before the shooting, locked in a battle for control over of the high-end leather upholstery company founded in 1972. That court hearing did not go well for Black, who four hours later was arrested at the company’s offices, according to the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office.
Earlier that fateful day, a Catawba County Superior Court judge ordered Black to follow through on a settlement agreement under which he had agreed to sell his entire stake in Old Hickory Tannery for $1. However, Black had attempted to back out of the deal weeks after it had been reached in open court. That turnabout led to the hearing on June 17.
At that hearing, Judge Nathaniel J. Poovey signed an order directing Black and Old Hickory Tannery to comply with the terms of an “In-Court Settlement Agreement” that the parties struck on May 11. The binding agreement, or the “In-Court Settlement Agreement,” was signed by attorneys for both sides, and it included dozens of detailed provisions covering everything from the company’s tax filings and insurance coverage to a three-year non-compete and non-solicitation period barring Black from the furniture business within 100 miles of Catawba County.
Sometime before June 1, Black changed his mind, informing his attorney that he and the company were withdrawing their consent to the agreement, according to the record of events in the court order. The court next ordered Black and Old Hickory Tannery to perform the settlement in full.
The order was signed at about 11:30 a.m., Wednesday, June 17. At about 3:20 p.m. that same day, the Newton Police Department received a call reporting a shooting at Old Hickory Tannery on Locust Street in Newton, according to the Newton PD. When police arrived at the scene, they found Arguelles shot in the chest and the back, according to the police report. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful, and Arguelles was declared dead at the scene.
Black brought Arguelles on as a business partner in 2018, a partnership that enabled Old Hickory Tannery to return to the High Point furniture market that year.
Black is 85; Arguelles was 59. Black’s next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 17 in Catawba County Superior Court.
