RR Donnelley to Close Pennsylvania Printing Plant, Impacting 70 Workers

A report in the Sunbury, Pennsylvania, The Daily Item indicated that RR Donnelley (RRD) plans to close its 125,000-sq.-ft. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, commercial printing plant in November. The newspaper said that RRD filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notice with the state, indicating that layoffs of approximately 70 employees will take place during a two-week period beginning on Nov. 14.

Although the news is a major blow to the small Union County community nestled along the Susquehanna River, the same news outlet reported that a local businessman is interested in acquiring the printing plant, located on Industrial Boulevard, and in offering jobs to some of its workers. The Daily Item said Steve Patton, of Patton Logistics Group, had reached out to the Lewisburg facility HR department about job openings within his organization, and was planning to contact the RRD corporate offices in Chicago about acquiring the manufacturing plant itself.

“Once it comes on the market, I’d definitely be interested in it," Patton told the newspaper. "I’m interested in the employees who are going to be displaced.”

The former Moore Business Forms plant first opened in 1960, and was acquired by RRD in 2004 as part of RRD's $2.8 billion deal to acquire Moore Wallace. As part of that transaction, then-Moore Wallace CEO Mark Angelson succeeded RRD Chairman and CEO William Davis to lead the combined company. Just the previous year, Moore Corp. had acquired Wallace Computer Services for $1.3 billion.