"We believe it's a shame that the company decided to make this decision to close down this facility," Castro said. "Our focus is on taking care of our members and helping them throughout this transition for other employment or retirement or whatever they decide to do."

Among those impacted by the plant closure: 25 press or assistant press operators, 25 stackers, 15 sealing operators, 10 inspectors, eight managers or supervisors and 70 other employees.

All but 25 of the plant's employees are members of the Printing, Packaging, Production Workers Union of North America, Castro said.

Union leaders are negotiating severance packages for members and ensuring they have extended health care throughout the transition, he said.

"We are also working to place some of them at other unionized facilities in the area," Castro said. "We also got the company to agree to bring in a job fair and do that on the premises."

Some employees have been at the plant since the 1990s and have not done a resume in 30 years, he said.

Headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, Pactiv Evergreen currently employs more than 14,000 employees across 51 manufacturing facilities and 42 distribution centers in North America, according to its website.

Prior to the pandemic, the publicly-traded company had more than 26,000 employees, according its 2019 annual report. It dropped to between 14,000 and 15,000 employees the following year.

The company has one other Michigan plant, also in Kalamazoo at 4141 Manchester Road. When asked if some employees may be able to transfer to there, Castro said it's a different branch of the company and they perform different types of operations there.

A member of the company's communications team did not immediately respond to a request for comment prior to publication.