BREWER (AP) – Personnel records for 240 employees that were sealed when Eastern Fine Paper Co. closed in January should be available soon, according to the court-appointed trustee for the defunct paper mill.

Many displaced employees have not been able to verify for future employers their past employment, training and education without the records, which are required to be made available under federal labor law.

“When many of the workers applied for other employment, there was no way to verify their employment,” said Steve Bost, Brewer city manager.

Former employees were so desperate to find work after the mill closing that their outcry encouraged the city to keep pressuring the shuttered mill to retrieve the records, said Drew Sachs, Brewer’s economic development director.

“We have worked ridiculously hard to get this issue resolved,” said Sachs, adding that there is no statewide policy to deal with employee records after a shutdown such as the one at Eastern Fine Paper.

Gary Growe, the court-appointed attorney serving as Eastern Fine’s trustee, filed a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to transfer custody of the records, which fill an entire room at the former mill, to the state.

The confusion surrounding the records stemmed from the sale of the former mill’s parent company in May and the subsequent gift of the property to the city, through South Brewer Redevelopment LLC, Growe said.

“The records were not property of the bankruptcy estate,” he said. “They were really property of the individual employees.”

Adam Fisher, assistant to the commissioner of the state Department of Labor, said the department is willing to take custody of the records, though he noted the “very unconventional” nature of the transfer.

“This is not a common occurrence,” he said. “We’re not generally involved in obtaining records.”



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