Half of Elkay’s 46 workers are cut

LANARK – Half of the employees at Elkay Cos. – 23 workers – will be laid off in early May, the company confirmed Monday.

The workers, who were notified Thursday, will be offered severance packages as well as help with résumés and job searches, Elkay spokeswoman Linda Carlisle said.

The company also has a plant in Savanna; officials are determining whether any Lanark employees can or want to move to that facility, Carlisle said.

The layoffs will come as Elkay discontinues its Phylrich faucet line, which is made at the Lanark plant.

Phylrich faucets are for high-end luxury baths. They’re a fairly old product line, and fewer people are buying them, Carlisle said.

“To keep it as a strategic product, we’d need to invest considerable capital,” she said.

The Lanark plant also is an Elkay distribution center, where most of the other employees work.

The company does not plan any more layoffs, Carlisle said.

Elkay operated a water cooler manufacturing plant in Lanark until 2001. The building at 105 N. Rochester St. sat vacant about 5 years until Medallion Cabinetry, a subsidiary of Oak Brook-based Elkay, moved in spring 2006.

Less than 3 years later, in January 2009, Minnesota-based Medallion closed, putting 133 people – about a tenth of the village population at the time – out of work.

Medallion officials cited poor economic conditions, including a drop in new housing and in the availability of loans, for the closure.