‘Merry Christmas, Jay’ among 1,500 workers laid off by Sumitomo Rubber

TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) -- "Merry Christmas, Jay," the man who saved over 24 people during Buffalo's deadly Christmas blizzard in 2022, is one of over 1,500 employees who were recently laid off by Sumitomo Rubber.

The company announced the plant's closure last week and said it's primarily due to overall facility performance and that the plant has been losing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Jay Withey is considered a hero among many in Western New York when he broke into a school...