On August 19, tool giant Stanley Black & Decker filed a WARN notice with the state of Maryland, alerting officials to its plans to close a 75-year-old factory.
Built in 1951 to produce power tools, the Hampstead, Maryland, Black & Decker plant well preceded the 2010 merger between the former company and Stanley Works.
And over the years, the company’s name isn't the only thing that’s changed.
While Hampstead employed 3,800 by the late 1960s, by 1985 – according to reports – its power tool manufacturing production was shuttered “when efforts to modernize the plant failed.”
The company then began using the space mainly as a distribution center – even selling the building along the way – and maintained a small presence to date, for “powdered metal manufacturing and limited warehousing and distribution.”
And while a shadow of its former self, the facility does still employ about 55 workers – that is, until October, when the layoff proceedings will begin, concluding with the facility’s target shutdown in March of 2027.
The Baltimore Sun spoke with Stanley Black & Decker spokesperson Debora Raymond, who said the company had, over the past several years, “seen a steady decline in volume in the materials produced at [the] Hampstead facility” and, as such, the closure was pursued.
Raymond said the firm was “focused on providing a smooth transition to impacted employees, including options for employment at other Stanley Black & Decker U.S. facilities and operations for salaried employees, in addition to severance and job placement support services for both salaried and hourly employees.”
Stanley Black & Decker announced more than 300 layoffs and a plant closure earlier this year in New Britain Connecticut – once dubbed “Hardware City.” The company blamed the move on a lack of demand for single-sided tape measures.
