A sincere hat tip -- to an alert anonymous commenter (on the backup blogsite), here. The online version of WKOK 1070 AM, a news radio station in Pennsylvania has this item this morning:
. . . .The Cherokee Pharmaceutical plant in Riverside [Pennsylvania] is being acquired by its previous owner. Merck & Co. will apparently buy back the plant it had sold to PRWT of Philadelphia in 2008.
Terms were not disclosed, nor was a timetable for closing the deal released. Northumberland County Commissioner Vinny Clausi says it's good news for employees of the plant that began producing pharmaceutical ingredients in the 1950's, in that the larger company would have more money to spend on the plant and its workforce.
Clausi notes that the county granted the plant a Keystone Opportunity Zone designation, which exempted it from property taxes for 10 years, in exchange for annual payments of about $25,000 to Riverside Borough.
Meantime, Merck confirms that the current workforce of more than 450 will be maintained, and that a contract with 270 union members will be renegotiated. The current union contract expired in April and has been extended, pending the sale. . . .
Merck apparently divested the Riverside plant to a minority-owned Philadelphia-area holding company called PRWT Services, in 2008. See its web site here (image at right derived from one of its internal pages). I assume the above-described tax holdiay will end, given that the plant will no longer be considered a disadvantaged business. We'll see.
I'd also worry about Merck stonewalling the union -- once it reacquires the plant.
No comments:
Post a Comment