Giant Food lays off 20 warehouse support workers in Jessup

Layoffs follow earlier announcement of warehouse closure

Twenty Giant Food workers will be laid off by the end of the month after a dry-goods warehouse in Jessup that supplies Giant stores closes, union locals representing workers said Monday.

Warehouse operator Jessup Logistics LLC said in April that it was shutting down the warehouse and laying off about 250 people. The subsidiary of New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers said it would save about $13.5 million a year by shifting the distribution work to a more technologically advanced facility in York, Pa.

Giant, the region's largest grocery chain, outsourced the dry-goods operation to Jessup Logistics but still owns the center and runs a fresh-foods warehouse as well as the transportation and recycling divisions.

As part of a consolidation, 20 of 66 workers in the recycling division were notified Monday that they would be laid off. They are responsible for cleaning the delivery truck trailers. Twelve employees represented by Teamsters Local 922 and eight represented by Local 730 will be laid off, the locals' presidents said.

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