Stanley Engineered Fastening to permanently close next year

Published 4:31 pm Tuesday, October 13, 2020

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Stanley Black & Decker plans to permanently close its Stanley Engineered Fastening facility in Stanfield, according to the state’s current Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification report.

The 90,000-square-foot facility, which produces permanent mechanical fasteners called rivets and employs more than 90 people, plans to lay off 81 employees.

In its WARN notice letter to the North Carolina Department of Commerce signed on Sept. 20, Kent Shane, director of operations for Stanley Engineered Fastening, wrote that Stanley Black & Decker made the decision to close the facility “in an attempt to strategically consolidate our worldwide operations into fewer facilities.”

The closure, Shane wrote, will take place in several phases beginning in late February and ending in early August of next year. Roughly 10 employees will be laid off between Feb. 6 through March 12; 29 employees will be laid off from March 26 through April 9; 31 employees will be laid off from May 28 through June 11; and 11 employees will be laid off from July 23 through Aug. 6.

Of the total positions that will be affected, 50 come from the production department, including 20 people who work as head operators and 13 people who work as final assembly operators.

At the end of the phasing process, Shane wrote, all positions at the facility will be permanently eliminated, though some workers will be transferred to another facility. There are no “bumping” rights for salaried and non-union hourly workers at the facility.

The Department of Commerce received the notice on Oct. 6.

Stanley Engineered Fastening is a global company with 37 plants around the world, including 15 in North America. The Stanfield location manufactures Avdel brand product, which makes an assortment of rivets, lock bolts and engineered fasteners.

Stanley Engineered Fastening is one of 20 brands that make up the parent company, Stanley Black & Decker, a Fortune 500 American manufacturer of industrial tools, household hardware and provider of security locks and products.

The facility, located at 614 N.C. Highway 200 South, has produced blind fasteners since 1995, though under the ownership of many different companies. It was initially Avdel Cherry Textron, followed by Acument Global Technologies and Infastech before becoming Stanley Engineered in 2013.

According to the North Carolina Department of Commerce, “companies that have announced plans to either close a facility or conduct a mass personnel layoff are required to file with the state, under certain circumstances, a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification — commonly called a WARN notice.”

In Stanly County, 344 people have been temporarily laid off from two companies, the Michelin manufacturing facility in Norwood and Carolina Eye Associates in Albemarle, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the WARN notices from both companies.

About Chris Miller

Chris Miller has been with the SNAP since January 2019. He is a graduate of NC State and received his Master's in Journalism from the University of Maryland. He previously wrote for the Capital News Service in Annapolis, where many of his stories on immigration and culture were published in national papers via the AP wire.

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