PPG Creighton plant workers to vote on 3-year pact

Union workers at PPG Industries Inc.'s Creighton automotive glass plant are scheduled to vote on a three-year contract today, days before PPG wants to turn over ownership of the plant to a joint venture.

The workers will meet in Tarentum today to hear details of the proposed contract before voting on the deal, said James Watt, staff representative for the United Steelworkers Local 12-G, which represents about 180 workers. The settlement, if approved, would take effect immediately, Watt said, even though the union's current pact does not expire until March.

Watt declined to reveal any details of the tentative settlement. Karla Grant, president of USW Local 112-G, could not be reached for comment.

PPG spokesman Jeremy Neuhart declined to comment on the tentative agreement.

The Creighton plant, in East Deer, makes automobile windshields. It is part of PPG's automotive glass business that is to be sold for $330 million to Kohlberg & Co. LLC, a private equity firm in Mt. Kisco, N.Y.

PPG, which will retain a 40 percent interest in the business, has said it expects to close on the sale in the third quarter, which ends Tuesday. The timing to close the deal has not changed, Neuhart said.

The new company will be named Pittsburgh Glass Works and will establish a headquarters separate from PPG.

In addition to the Creighton plant, PPG will sell automotive glass plants in Tipton, Blair County, and Meadville, Crawford County, to the joint venture. PPG has nine automotive glass manufacturing plants, which make original equipment as well as replacement windows, plus nine satellite assembly plants and service centers. The company has about 4,400 workers in that business segment.

PPG has not said what impact, if any, the sale of its automotive glass business will have on its research and development laboratory at Harmar. Whether some of those employees will work for Pittsburgh Glass Works has not been disclosed.

PPG had intended to sell its automotive glass business and services centers for $500 million last year to another private equity firm, Platinum Equity of Beverly Hills, Calif., but that deal fell through in December. The dispute between the two companies over the collapse of the sale resulted in a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York.

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