A plant in East Stroudsburg that makes storage racks suddenly closed its doors Friday morning, leaving 150 people without jobs. The workers at Excel Storage Products are upset they didn't see it coming.
William Maioriello is a former fork lift operator at Excel Storage. He said when he came into work Friday morning, a meeting was called.
"The CEO came out and explained to everybody, because of the shortage of jobs coming in, and the economy of course, things were bad, that they were going to close our plant and the other plants that are associated with us throughout the United States," said Maioriello, "We weren't pre-warned. It looked like everything was moving on as usual,"
Maioriello said everyone got their paychecks and that was it. Within three hours, the union representative arrived to find out what happened.
Frederick Schneider said what the company did, by letting their workers go, is illegal.
"There's a thing called the Warren Act, where you have to give so much advanced notice to the workers and pay them so much pay, so many weeks pay," said Schneider.
"People were crying, people were worried, some spouses weren't working or collecting unemployment. This was the only income coming in," said Maioriello.
Newswatch 16 tried to talk to company officials, but were turned away and told they went home for the day.
"I got a hundred and some people working here that make a decent living. They get paid medical, they have a retirement system and it's a horrible economy out there. Everyone knows that. Right now, I don't know where people are going to go," said Schneider.
A skeleton staff is staying until the products are gone.
The union is holding a strike at the plant in East Stroudsburg on Monday and also holding a meeting at the plant on Tuesday.