Union Drives Allegheny County Council to Label Business a Sweatshop

By Timothy Puko
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Allegheny County Council declared a Rankin steel plant a “sweatshop” Tuesday night, the culmination of an 18-month union campaign against W&K Steel LLC.

The bill moves to County Executive Dan Onorato, who hasn’t decided whether to approve a designation that bars the nonunion company from county projects, county manager Jim Flynn said.

W&K Steel doesn’t have any county contracts. Council members said they were acting on accusations of low pay and unsafe working conditions.

“(Union organizers) would not be sitting there if something wasn’t going on,” Councilman James R. Ellenbogen, D-Banksville, said in announcing his support to an audience filled with union activists and company employees. “This is not a court of law, but I’m a working guy and I believe what they say.”

The action was the first since County Council adopted a sweatshop ordinance in March 2007.

W&K Steel has had 14 Occupational Safety and Health Administration citations since 2002. Activists and their supporters on council blame company owners for the 2008 death of a worker at a sister company and allege they pay foreign-born workers $9 an hour for jobs for which other workers make $18.

The bill passed without opposition, with council’s four Republicans abstaining. Company officials decried the vote, saying the accusations are hearsay and union propaganda.

Council acted after about 30 minutes of public comment that drew shouts and applause from a divided audience. The crowd included about 35 labor activists — several in gray T-shirts reading “Three Rivers Coalition for Justice” – and 20 W&K workers.

“Slowly it will wipe us out. (We’re) branded,” said Dan Frayer, a fabricator from Apollo. “Nobody new is going to give us a chance or trust us. We do great work.”

Edward Wilhelm formed W&K Steel LLC in 2002. Its predecessor, Wilhelm & Kruse Inc., was overwhelmed by $44.8 million in claims from 179 creditors and sought to liquidate through bankruptcy in 2001.

Wilhelm last week blamed the bankruptcy on his company’s not being paid for steel erection work at PNC Park. A lawsuit for damages was dismissed when Common Pleas Judge Terrence O’Brien ruled that it was filed after the statute of limitations expired. Wilhelm has until Monday to appeal.

It’s part of a long history the company has of irresponsible behavior, said Barney Oursler, executive director of Pittsburgh United, one of several groups pushing the sweatshop bill.

W&K Steel hasn’t decided how to respond to the legislation, its officials said.

“We’re still reeling from the idea that … our County Council can take hearsay and pass a bill that could hurt a company that employs 50 people and feel good about it,” said Celeste Wilhelm, the company’s manager of human resources.

Original article posted at Pittsburgh Tribune-Review