Group attempts to rescue Hathaway Foundation seeks to raise $1 million

WATERVILLE – The Made in the USA Foundation made a final plea to save C.F. Hathaway Co. even as other interested parties resigned themselves to the closing of the 165-year-old shirtmaker.

Hathaway is due to close Friday, but Joel Joseph, the foundation’s head, said another $1 million from private investors would give the foundation-backed effort enough money to buy and operate the company.

Shares in the new company are being sold for $4 each, and those involved in the effort are more than willing to relinquish control to a majority investor, Joseph said.

“We’re not tycoons,” Joseph said at a meeting attended by 20 citizens, economic developers and local business representatives. “Any investor putting in a million dollars can control the company.”

Absent from the meeting were representatives from the city of Waterville, Hathaway, and Hathaway’s owner, Windsong Allegiance Apparel Group of Westport, Conn.

Sen. Kenneth T. Gagnon, D-Waterville, who headed a legislative task force to help Hathaway, said he and other officials decided against attending the meeting after some consideration.

“At this point, we don’t want to be distracted from doing what we can for the workers,” Gagnon said. “We just don’t think the Made in the USA group is going to be able to come through. While it’s well-intentioned, we think it’s just not a legitimate avenue at this point.”

More than 200 people worked at the factory. Most have been laid off already, and only a handful will remain after Friday.

Some workers say the company became a lost cause a month ago, when Hathaway failed to win a large contract to make shirts for the U.S. Air Force.

“We just want him to go away,” Vicki Gilbert, a laid-off worker and union steward, said of Joseph. “It’s too little, too late.”

Joseph’s assurances in June that the company was close to being saved prompted many workers to stay on despite reduced work hours, which ultimately made them eligible for less unemployment assistance, Gilbert said.

Joseph said the workers’ anger is misdirected. He said they should be upset that their own union, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees, failed to put money into the effort.

The foundation began its effort after Windsong announced in March that it planned to shut down the factory. Windsong said it would donate equipment in the city-owned building to a viable buyer and license the foundation to produce under the Hathaway label.

The Made in the USA Foundation is a national organization whose goals include promoting American-made products and preserving the nation’s manufacturing jobs.