By Eric Fetters
Herald Writer
EVERETT — Workers at a now-closed concrete pipe plant ended their last day on the job Friday with picket signs in their hands, as they lobbied for severance pay from the company.
After operating since the 1940s, the Rinker Materials Corp. plant at 6300 Glenwood Ave. in south Everett shut down Friday. Rinker officials haven’t talked publicly about reasons for the closure.
The plant employed more than 30 people.
Many of those workers, along with family members and representatives of their union, stood in front of the plant at midday Friday and protested the way they were laid off.
"I understand plants have to close," said Duane Gruenberg of Lake Goodwin, who worked at the plant for 23 years. "But do you have to treat your workers like garbage?"
Gruenberg and other workers, most of whom are members of Laborers Local Union 292, said they want severance pay from Rinker. They said that courtesy was extended to the half-dozen salaried employees being laid off at the plant, but not to them.
"All we want is the same that’s been offered to the salaried people," said Dean Hanson, an Everett resident who worked at the plant for 32 years. "We want the same treatment."
He said some salaried employees were given several months of severance pay.
Late on Thursday, the company offered the hourly workers up to several weeks of pay, depending on their experience. That offer was still under negotiation, union officials said.
Rinker officials referred calls to the company’s corporate office in Florida. A message left there was not returned on Friday.
Though it had been rumored before, workers got official word of the plant closing two weeks ago, Hanson said. On the following Friday, April 12, half of the workers were laid off immediately, with the rest ending their jobs this past week.
Many of those on the picket line said they felt Rinker treated them badly, especially since they were loyal to their jobs and even helped lobby local officials to allow the company’s gravel pit in Granite Falls a few years ago.
"We, as employees, did everything we could to get the quarry permitted. We were told that was the future or our jobs here," Hanson said.
Rinker, known until recently as CSR America, bought the plant and other concrete and gravel operations from Everett’s Associated Sand and Gravel Co. in 1990. The company’s other facilities in the area have not been affected by the closure.
Workers have been told the inventory of concrete pipe and pipe forms have been sold to Hanson Pipe &Products, which operates a plant in Tacoma.
You can call Herald Writer Eric Fetters at 425-339-3453 or send e-mail to fetters@heraldnet.com.
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