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Union at Richland roofing plant accepts severance offer: More than 100 workers at GAF Materials expected to be laid off.
(Morning Call, The (Allentown, PA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 1--Members of the union representing workers at a soon-to -be-shuttered GAF Materials roofing plant in Richland Township met Friday in Sellersville and reluctantly approved the company's final severance offer.
The Wayne, N.J. company announced in January that it would be closing the Pacific Drive plant because the slumping housing market had killed demand for asphalt roofing shingles.
Now the workers, many of whom are men in their 40s or 50s, will have to search a tight job market for work to replace the average wage of $17 an hour earned by GAF plant workers.
"I don't have anything lined up," said David Leh, 50, of Allentown, who has worked at the plant for the last seven years. "But I do have two applications in."
One of those is at Hatfield Quality Meats in Montgomery County, where Leh said he doubts he will earn as much as he earned at GAF.
Some 53 members of the 82-member International Association of Machinists Local 1761 voted overwhelmingly Friday to approve the deal, which was only slightly better than a package they turned down just two weeks ago.
With seven years' experience, Leh will walk away with $1,000 in severance. Workers with fewer than five years will receive $750. At the top of the scale, workers with more than 25 years at the plant will get $4,000.
David De Palma, 25, of Pen Argyl said he plans to stay home and watch his 1-year-old son Skyler while his wife returns to full-time work.
De Palma, who had worked at the plant for three years, has a degree in accounting, and said he will need to find some way to supplement their income.
"I'm probably going to have to find a night job," he said.
Some of the workers, like Robert Jones, 53, of Richlandtown, had recently purchased homes, thinking GAF, which purchased the plant in 2005 and then added a major expansion, promised more stability.
"They marched in and told us how stable a company they would be," Jones said. "Now I'm jobless and still have a mortgage."
Union shop steward Bill Snyder said most of the men will have health insurance through the end of March, with the option to continue coverage at a cost of roughly $1,000 a month.
Snyder said he thinks the workers were not treated fairly, or given severance comparable to workers at other plants the company has recently closed.
"There isn't much out there, especially in the range of the wages we were earning," Snyder said. "I see a lot of $10-an-hour jobs out there that won't pay my bills."
Counting nonunion workers, 110 people are eventually expected to be laid off at the plant, which is expected to run through mid-March with a skeleton crew of about 25.
GAF officials did not return calls made to their media relations office Friday.
scott.kraus@mcall.com
215-230-4930
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