Union Blocked Springs-Pillowtex Deal

RALEIGH—The 6,450 layoffs at Pillowtex, Inc., which included about 4,800 workers in North Carolina, may have been mitigated had the union representing its employees not intervened in a deal to sell parts of the company. The largest manufacturer of home fashions in the United States, Springs Industries, offered as much as $300 million for parts of Pillowtex’s operations and assets in the early spring of this year. However, union may have hampered the deal because Springs’s plans didn’t include the retention of Pillowtex’s Kannapolis-area operations.