Shop-Vac Ceases Operations
Shop-Vac abruptly closes Williamsport facilities, leaving estimated 400 jobless
WILLIAMSPORT-- The manufacturer of wet/dry residential, commercial and industrial vacuum cleaners has shut down its Williamsport facilities without advance notice, leaving an estimated 400 employees without a job.
Shop-Vac Corp. notified local officials just before 2 p.m. Tuesday it was closing because a planned sale fell through and that employee terminations were effective immediately.
“We’re very disgusted with what happened,” said Jason Fink, president and CEO of the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce.
Ownership did not reach out to the community for assistance in any of its challenges, Fink said, noting that if it had, there might have been a better outcome for the employees and the business.
Attempts to reach the owners of the family-owned business that was founded in 1953 as an offshoot of Craft Tool Co. were unsuccessful.
Companies are required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to give a 60-day notice before closing.
There is no such notice listed on the state Department of Labor and Industry website, Fink said.
Earlier this year, the owners of the old Wood-Mode in Snyder County agreed to pay its employees $10.3 million to settle a federal lawsuit in which they were accused of violating the WARN Act.
Employees at the three facilities Shop-Vac has in Williamsport were reportedly told the coronavirus pandemic and economic conditions left Shop-Vac in dire financial straits.
Fink said he feels especially bad for the employees who are suddenly out of work and without benefits.
Shop-Vac’s Facebook page, whose last post was in March, states it also has manufacturing facilities in Binghamton, N.Y., and Shenzhen, China, and distributes products from Williamsport Burlington; Ontario, Canada, Guadalajara; Mexico; Melbourne, Australia; and Shenzhen.
No information was available on the status of those facilities.
Shop-Vac at one time owned McCulloch Corp., the manufacturer of chain saw and lawn and garden equipment.
It bought the company in 1990 the same year it embarked on a $2.2 million expansion of its plant in Williamsport.
Shop-Vac operated McCulloch from that company’s corporate headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., until it sold it in 1995.
READ MORE: Old Wood-Mode agrees to pay employees $10.3 million, but will they ever get the money?