Aiás Magitas, a 20-year-old forensic anthropology student from Charlotte, had been working the guest services desk at Western Carolina University’s A.K. Hinds University Center for nearly two years when he got a “vague” text from his boss around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 30. He wanted Magitas to come in and talk, and Magitas was pretty sure he knew what it was about.

Over the past few years, political action group Down Home North Carolina has made a name for itself in Western North Carolina by championing issues important to working families, but a recent spate of staff firings in the midst of a unionization drive by its employees — along with allegations of hush money — suggests Down Home doesn’t practice what it preaches when it comes to standing with workers. 

For more than a century in the tiny Haywood County town of Canton, the sun has risen and set — literally and figuratively — on the sprawling paper mill located in the heart of town. 

Following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, the United Steelworkers Local 9-507 in Canton has to redo its election of officers before March 31, 2016.

Evergreen Packaging has been in talks with its employees since the spring, trying to hammer out a new contract. This month, the company reached a deal with members of the union.

Negotiations between Evergreen Packaging and its union employees at the company’s Canton and Waynesville facilities are still ongoing. The talks resume July 15.