Charleroi has seen its fair share of major companies closing this year, and now another is joining the list. Fourth Street BBQ, which has multiple locations in the area, started laying off people last week, and the layoffs are slated to continue through the end of the month.
Fourth Street Barbeque, which also goes by Fourth Street Foods, filed a notice with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry last week saying it plans to lay off 252 employees through the end of the month.
According to the WARN database, the layoffs are categorized as a “closing.” Now – an investigation into whether Fourth Street Foods violated the WARN Act, which requires a 60-day advance written notice.
Paperwork filed by a class action law firm said it’s looking into whether those 252 employees are entitled to severance pay and benefits. Six days before that filing, Huntington National Bank sued Fourth Street Barbecue, alleging the company breached its credit agreement and defaulted on loans exceeding $89 million.
The anticipated closure of Fourth Street Foods is all too familiar for people like Daniele Byrne.
“It’s not easy finding a job with benefits or with good pay like we were making at Corelle,” Byrne said.
She and her husband lost their jobs at the Charleroi-based Anchor Hocking Glass Factory earlier this year when it closed. Channel 11 spoke to Byrne back in February about the Correlle plant closing. She says it’s been difficult finding another job. Her husband just started a new job last week.
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“Now you have to travel a lot further. Which my husband would travel 13 miles to Charleroi. Well, now, he has to travel 35 miles to Washington,” Byrne added.
She wonders where the hundreds of Fourth Street Foods employees will go now.
“A lot of people in Charleroi don’t have cars, so it was easy to go the Corning world kitchen plant or up to Fourth Street BBQ or even that spaghetti plant that closed down a month before they announced our plant was closing.”
Channel 11 reached out to Fourth Street Foods CEO Dave Barbe for comment. We were told he was out of town this week.
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