General Binding Corp (GBC) has notified the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development that it plans to permanently lay off 75 workers in Pleasant Prairie, where it makes book and magazine binding equipment, custom binders and related equipment used in the commercial printing industry.
General Binding Corp. is a portfolio company of ACCO Brands Corp., a Lincolnshire, Ill.-based office supply company. It now employs 150 at its 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Pleasant Prairie at 10303 80th Ave.
ACCO purchased GBC in 2005, and the workforce reductions are part of the company’s consolidations of operations, said Rich Nelson, a spokesman with ACCO. Some of the work will be shifted to the company’s plant in Portugal. Other manufacturing and technical service will be moved to Pennsylvania and Illinois. Some of GBC’s manufacturing will remain in Pleasant Prairie, Nelson said, including staging, color coil, twin loop wire and automated binding equipment.
