Class action suit filed against Anchor
SOUTH CONNELLSVILLE – Two former Anchor Glass Container Corp. employees on behalf of their co-workers have filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming that workers did not receive a required plant shutdown notice prior to the closure. Through attorney Gregory T. Kunkel of Uniontown, former Anchor workers Deborah A. Shipley and Steven D. Petrone claim that the Florida-based firm shuttered the borough plant in violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act that prohibits companies from ordering a plant closing or a mass layoff without first providing affected employees with a 60-day written notice.
Shipley, a South Connellsville resident, was employed by the glassmaker in 1992 and was serving as a quality inspector at the time of the closure. Petrone, a Connellsville resident, had worked for the company since 1999 and was a loader when the glassmaker was shuttered.
The lawsuit was filed recently in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Kunkel said that the WARN Act policy is to ensure that workers receive advance notice of plant closures and mass layoffs that affect their jobs so that they have time to adjust to their loss of employment and to obtain other employment.
W. Robert Blyth, Anchor Glass Container Corp. vice-president of human resources, declined to discuss the matter when contacted Thursday at the Tampa headquarters.
“We do not make comment in connection with pending lawsuits,” he said. “In matters of litigation, it is ill-advised. So we don’t do it.”
More than 300 Anchor Glass workers were notified Nov. 4 that the company planned to permanently cease operations.
In an interview following the closure, Charles Tressler, president of Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics and Allied Workers Union Local 149, said union representatives were notified by plant officials at 5 p.m. on Nov. 4 to attend a meeting and within hours those working the afternoon shift were escorted out of the building and the doors of the plant locked.
In a letter to borough Mayor Pete Casini, dated Nov. 4, corporate vice-president of labor relations Mark J. Karrenbauer stated that the company would “close permanently its facility located at 1926 Baldridge St., effective that same date.
Casini said earlier that no prior notification of a closure had been forwarded to him.
The Feb. 11 lawsuit is the second to be filed since the closure.
In December, company investors in a lawsuit filed with the Florida federal court, alleged corporate officials failed to disclose critical information about its production, which translated into the closure of the borough plant and caused financial losses to stockholders.
Kunkel, meanwhile, said that the employees have suffered a loss of income and fringe benefits that would have been received during the notice period.
The lawsuit states that the plaintiffs seek a jury trial in the matter and are requesting that the former employees receive “appropriate compensatory damages under the WARN Act, including back pay and lost fringe benefits for the 60-day period.”