{"id":1765,"date":"2020-12-10T11:49:15","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T11:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=136991"},"modified":"2020-12-10T11:49:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T11:49:15","slug":"layoffs-cryptocurrency-and-uncertainty-at-a-ukrainian-tycoons-kentucky-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/10\/layoffs-cryptocurrency-and-uncertainty-at-a-ukrainian-tycoons-kentucky-factory\/","title":{"rendered":"Layoffs, Cryptocurrency, And Uncertainty At A Ukrainian Tycoon’s Kentucky Factory"},"content":{"rendered":"
When CC Metals & Alloys (CCMA) halted operations in July, some workers at the 70-year-old plant in western Kentucky expected to be back on the job by the New Year.<\/p>\n
After all, the factory — which produces an alloy of iron and silicon for the boom-and-bust steel industry — has cut output and laid off employees during tough times over the decades, only to fire up idled furnaces and call workers back after a few months.<\/p>\n
So for some employees of the plant owned by Ukrainian tycoon Ihor Kolomoyskiy and his business partner Hennadiy Boholyubov, it came as a shock when union leaders at CCMA informed them last month that most of the remaining workers would be laid off in December — even as the ferroalloy market shows signs of rebounding from a sharp COVID-19 slump.<\/p>\n
“Most of the people that have been laid off in July ain’t even been looking for a job” because they assumed they would be back at the plant soon, one worker told RFE\/RL by telephone, speaking on condition of anonymity because the new job cuts have not been publicly announced.<\/p>\n
The clouded future of CCMA and its workers is another twist in the more than 10-year-old story of Kolomoyskiy’s business activities in the United States, where he and Boholyubov built a steel business worth hundreds of millions of dollars but lost it<\/a><\/strong> by 2017.<\/p>\n Word of the additional layoffs came months after the U.S. Justice Department accused Kolomoyskiy and Boholyubov of purchasing U.S. real estate and businesses with money embezzled from their Kyiv-based bank in 2008-16.<\/p>\n