City Shirt Company, located on 10 City Shirt Road, Frackville, manufactures shirts and pants for the public safety and postal markets.
According to a press release, the inability to attract workers
to replace retired and retiring skilled sewers resulting in decreasing
production and efficiencies at the facility was cited as the main reason
for these decisions.
“Over the past few years,
the facilities have experienced the loss of our skilled sewers, primarily
through retirement. Our aggressive
efforts to hire and train new employees have been insufficient.” said David
Lurio, President of Elbeco. “These factors have resulted in the decision that
we are announcing today.
Elbeco Incorporated plans to consolidate its plants’ support operations into its Reading based facilities and move production into its U.S. based manufacturing partner facilities.
The company plans to work
with the union and its employees to provide severances and support and to
obtain federal funding for job training. “This is a very sad time for me
personally, as I have known many of the employees at these facilities, some
working over 30 years for the company.
Unfortunately, this type of action has
been all too frequent in our industry over the past few decades”.