GLENSHAW GLASS MAY NOT SURVIVE
Published: Friday, November 12, 2004
By Jim McKay
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The court-appointed receiver for 109-year-old Glenshaw Glass in Shaler said yesterday that the company’s chances of survival had dimmed following a decision by its 300 union workers to reject temporary wage and benefit concessions.
“I am not giving up, but I think the chance of its continuing in operations for much longer are slim,” said Margaret Good, the president of The Meridian Group who was named receiver of the struggling glass maker last week.
Good said the company did not have adequate cash to pay vendors and employees’ salaries, wages and benefits.
“If I can’t make payroll, I certainly can’t expect people to work for free, so I think the time is very limited,” Good said. “I think I've got days, not weeks, to come up with the solution.”
On Wednesday night, after meeting with Good, production workers in a close vote rejected temporary wage and benefit concessions that she sought to keep the plant open until a buyer was found.
The company suffered extensive damage to its furnaces and equipment in the Sept. 17 flood. Employees were able to restart two furnaces. A third went down a few weeks later, and the company did not have the money to make the necessary repairs and get back to operating profitably. An employee, Clark Weber, 53, of Ross, died in an industrial accident at the plant on Oct. 16.
“I’ve never been in a company that's been through so many bad things,” Good said. “Between problems with prior management, between floods, furnaces going down, an employee dying, it's just been horrendous. I can’t blame them for being so emotionally destroyed.”
The receivership, ordered last Friday by Common Pleas Judge Robert Horgos, ousted former Glenshaw Glass owner John Ghaznavi and halted pending creditor actions.
The action at Glenshaw came a day after Anchor Glass Container Corp. abruptly closed its bottle factory in South Connellsville, Fayette County, and released 340 workers.
The Glenshaw plant, which has operated in the Glenshaw section of Shaler since 1895, produces bottles for Iron City and Yuengling beer as well as wine and whiskey bottles and other glass containers.
Good said she cut overhead expenses by laying off approximately 40 percent of the salaried workforce, leaving a white-collar staff of about 30 to do administrative work.
Lou Brudnock, president of Local 134 of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics and Allied Workers International Union, said many of the production workers saw the concessions as excessive and were upset that the new management did not impose similar reductions on salaried workers.
Good, however, said she eliminated the salaried 401(k) plan and was asking those workers to do more with a reduced staff. She added that the financial impact to the company of cuts for 30 salaried people is not as significant as cuts for 300 production workers.
“It’s not that salaried people aren’t suffering. I’m struggling with how I can ask people to work twice as many hours and at the same time cut their salaries,” Good said. “But again, we’re talking 300 people versus 30. So, I understand the union’s concerns, and I’m looking at it, but that’s not going to solve my problems. I’ve got millions of dollars worth of problems here.”
Brudnock said the union was willing to continue negotiations and sit down with Good “anytime day or night. I believe we can work something out,” he said yesterday.
But Good said she was moving on to other pieces of the puzzle. She has been meeting with vendors and suppliers and with government officials to see if any financial aid may be available.
“The support from customers and vendors is overwhelming,” she said. “This company has been in business for 109 years and people do not want this company to go out of business.”
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