NILES — When Timothy Banter and fellow employees were called Monday into a meeting at the United Fixtures Howard Street plant, they didn’t know what to expect.

“Maybe they’re going to shut down for a week or two,” Banter remembers thinking.

But when the employees filed into the conference room around 2 p.m., the news they heard was worse than they could have imagined.

“(They) basically told everyone straight up that tomorrow’s their last day and they’re shutting the doors,” Banter said Monday. “As of 3:30 tomorrow, the company is done.”

Fewer than 50 employees at United Fixtures Interlake plant on Howard Street in Niles will indeed be laid off today, an employee in human resources in the Niles office confirmed late Monday.

The South Bend administration office and distribution center at 4300 Quality Drive, the employee said, are not affected.

United Fixtures, headquartered in Naperville, Ill., manufactures rack storage systems and fixtures.

United Fixtures closed its Third Street manufacturing plant in Niles in August 2007, a move that company officials said was due to “market conditions” and affected about 100 to 150 workers. The company announced that news at a meeting for workers in June 2007.

Back in 2003, United Fixtures also announced it had eliminated 23 salaried positions and would temporarily lay off 83 hourly workers. The 83 employees affected by the reductions at the time worked in United Fixtures plants at 2070 S. Third St. and at 901 Howard St. in Niles.

“They gave us one day’s notice,” Banter said. “I just don’t understand how a company could be that cold.”