DES PLAINES, Ill.--Feb. 14, 2006-- Schawk, Inc., one of North America's leading providers of digital imaging graphic services to the consumer products and brand imaging markets, announced today that Schawk, Inc. and the Local One of the Graphic Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are pleased to announce that they have reached an agreement over the closing of Schawk's 28th Street prepress facility in New York City. In February 2005, Schawk acquired its largest single competitor, Seven Worldwide, which has operations in cities and regions where both companies compete. Duplicate operations in New York City forced Schawk to close its prepress facility at 44 West 28th Street in Manhattan (47 employees) and consolidate its operations there with its newly acquired larger facility at 450 West 33rd Street (165 employees). Because there was existing capacity at the 33rd Street facility, only about half of the employees who lost jobs at 28th Street could be reemployed. "Schawk has a demonstrated history of commitment to the diversity of its workforce and the well-being of its employees," said Patrick LoPresti, president of Local One. "Local One initially disagreed with Schawk's decision to close 28th Street in favor of the new facility it acquired from Seven Worldwide. We have since reviewed the totality of information about Schawk's decision and have concluded that it was motivated by solid business judgment, and that neither race nor national origin played any role. As a result, the Union is dropping its discrimination claims against Schawk and retracting its prior published statements concerning those claims. We are pleased to have reached an agreement consistent with the total economics of Schawk's earlier proposal to provide meaningful separation benefits to union employees who lost employment because of the shutdown." Commenting on the settlement, President and CEO David Schawk said that the acquisition of Seven Worldwide was "a milestone for our company, more than doubling our size. Our success with acquisitions is largely due to our ability to intelligently integrate acquired companies. The most difficult integration decisions are those that involve the loss of jobs. Our original proposal was fair and equitable, substantially exceeding the contractual requirements in effect at the time. We are pleased that upon further review, Local One recognizes that under very difficult circumstances, Schawk's proposal was in the best interests of all concerned. Schawk is proud of its record of supporting and encouraging a multicultural and diverse workforce, so I am especially pleased that the record on this matter has been corrected."