Business & Tech
Day-Timer Workers Look to LVEDC for Help
The Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. plans to work closely with a real estate broker for the Day-Timer property in East Texas, with the ultimate goal to re-employ its workers.
With about a month to go before the anticipated layoffs begin at Day-Timer Inc. in East Texas, an official of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. said Tuesday that LVEDC will work to help the employees who will lose their jobs.
“We will do whatever we can to find a company to buy or rent the physical building being vacated … to re-employ as many of those workers here as possible,” said Pete Reinke, vice president of business and regional development for LVEDC.
Day-Timer’s parent company, ACCO Brands Corp. of Lincolnshire, Ill., announced June 6 it would close its East Texas plant in Lower Macungie Township, affecting the jobs of about 300 people.
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The company makes calendars, planners and organizers.
Richard Nelson, vice president of corporate communications for ACCO Brands, subsequently said the layoffs will begin in September and be completed during the first half of 2013.
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Nelson said some employees might opt to go to other ACCO Brands facilities in Sidney, N.Y.; Kettering, Ohio, and Lincolnshire, but it’s not clear yet which employees will relocate.
Once the layoffs are complete, Nelson said, the Day-Timer building will be put up for sale.
Day-Timer, one of the most recognizable names among Lehigh Valley businesses, was founded in 1947. Sara Pandl, director of planning and community development for Lower Macungie, said the site has a nonconforming use status. It is zoned for suburban residential use, Pandl said.
Reinke said that after ACCO Brands identifies a real estate broker to handle the property, LVEDC hopes to work closely with the broker. LVEDC’s goal, Reinke said, is to attract companies to look at the property and ultimately to create new jobs.
When ACCO Brands made its plant closure announcement in June, Thomas W. Tedford, executive vice president of ACCO Brands, said in a prepared statement that Day-Timer’s recent merger with the Mead Consumer & Office Products business had created “a significant overlap in our Dated Goods business.”
Tedford said it was determined that “the best option for our company in the long term is to co-locate these businesses in a much larger facility in Sidney, N.Y.”