Georgia Pacific's hardboard plant in Duluth will shut down for a week beginning Sept. 1, a company official said Friday after a staff meeting was held.
Although speculation flew Friday that the Duluth plant at 1220 W. Railroad St. was in trouble, Jeff Westra, the plant's human resources director, said workers will be back on the job Sept. 10.
"No, we're planning on coming back," he said. "We've been doing this sort of thing for months."
He said reports that the plant had ordered supplies for only the next 30 days was actually related to that temporary shutdown.
"We do this all the time," he said.
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Nobody has been laid off, and the company has no plans to lay off people, he said.
How many of the plant's 150 employees will be idled will be based on department need, he said. Those idled workers could take vacation time, he said.
Eric Abercrombie, a company spokesman in Atlanta, declined to comment because of company policy.
"We don't comment on speculation or rumors," he said. "If anything were to happen, if there were layoffs or closures or an announcement for expansion, we would notify our employees first, then reach out to local media."
The plant makes a thin hardboard product called Superwood that's widely used in the auto industry.
The Duluth plant temporarily shut down operations in July 2011, when its water use permit was suspended and getting the matter resolved was stymied by the Minnesota state shutdown. The plant uses water from Lake Superior to cool its processing equipment and then returns it.
