EAST BUTLER - It was another last day for East Butler workers.

The past two years have been hard on this small community as long-time manufacturing firms have closed their doors in rapid succession.

For 40, 50, even 60 years, these plants have employed hundreds of Butler County residents who never gave a thought as to what they would do if the jobs dried up.

Closings at TruValue and Castle Rubber, and now on Thursday at Penn Champ have thrown employees out of jobs that for some was the only job they've ever held.

At 3:15 p.m. Thursday, the ones who had lasted the longest as part of Penn Champ's workforce filed out of a side door to an uncertain future.

At its height, the aerosol-product company had 101 employees.

On Thursday, 28 were left to clock out one more time.

Penn Champ's parent company Bissell Inc. of Grand Rapids, Mich., decided to move the company's operations to other sites in the United States and Canada.

No one from Bissell or Penn Champ returned repeated telephone calls for comment.

Elmer Bloom, an United Steelworkers of America staff representative with District 10, said in the past that Bissell wanted concessions from the United Steelworkers of America Local 6346, the local for Penn Champ workers.

Bloom was not available for comment Thursday.

But any concessions the union made were not enough to save the East Butler manufacturer.

Adding insult to injury is that the company has leased its warehouse to MHF, an East Butler trucking company, which will hire workers to unload the warehouse and ship the remaining product, said Sandy Burke, a 27-year Penn Champ employee.

"We made that product and we should be the ones to handle it," Burke said, adding that the workers are planning to file a grievance through the United Steelworkers.

"We just hope the union will stand up for us one last time," she added.

The other complaint Penn Champ workers talked about in the parking lot after their last shift was their severance pay.

Employees that were laid off on or before April 1 of this year received a one-time payment of $100.

The employees who were left after April 1 are to receive $44.70 for each year they worked for Penn Champ.

Dave Angert, 61, said he has worked for Penn Champ for 41 years.

Not adding in what the company owes him for his vacation time, that means that in thanks for 41 years of service, Angert will get a check for $1,800 before taxes.

Industry standard severance is one week's pay for each year with a company.

In Angert's case, if Penn Champ-Bissell were paying the employees the industry standard, he would get closer to $15,000 in severance.

Bob Lumley, an 18-year Penn Champ employee, said he and the others have been trying to talk Angert into retiring and taking his pension, which they all have through the steelworkers union. But Angert, who was energetic, to say the least, after a whole day of work said he'll probably get a part-time job.

"Yeah, something like that," he said.

For the rest, there is the option of schooling or help with finding a new job, both paid for through state programs for displaced workers.

Matt Minteer, who worked for 14 years for Penn Champ maintaining both the building and its machines said that he is planning to go to a technical school for new training.

"They closed this place because of greed. It wasn't that we weren't making money, but that we weren't making enough for them, so they closed it," Minteer said on the way to his truck Thursday afternoon.

"It's a shame, but who knows? Maybe it'll be a blessing for us (the workers) in the end," he said.