Chinas aggressive export strategy has shattered the U.S. glass industry

CHARLEROI, Pa.  — For 132 years, the sound of the factory air whistle signaling the start of the workday at the plant along 8th and McKean Avenue in this Washington County borough meant all the things we associate with work: Men and women had jobs, families had food on their table, the societal fabric was strong, churches were full and the tax base kept the schools vibrant and the community prosperous. It was a good sound. It meant stability and aspiration.No one around here ever seemed to mind it. Last week, the sound of that whistle was different. It was longer, 132 seconds to be exact, a number meant to mark how many years the Pyrex glass plant had stood at this location.

It marked the end of the line for the plant. The sound was mournful as it echoed throughout the Mon Valley. Three hundred men and women are now without jobs in a town of 4,200.Last September, the company, now known as the Corelle Brands, announced it would close the plant that had been one of the great innovators at its inception when two Pittsburgh glass-making firms, the Thomas Evans & Company and the George Macbeth Company merged to form the Macbeth-Evans Glass Company in 1899. One year later, the local newspaper boasted about the expansion of manufacturing in Western Pennsylvania. Along a 16-mile strip, factories employed more than 8,000 people who made good wages at the turn of the century in what was once sleepy farmland. Hundreds of houses of all kinds were being built almost overnight on rolling hills that overlooked the plants, employing real estate developers and construction workers and causing a boom in mom-and-pop grocery stores, gas stations, barber shops, schools and churches. By 1936, Macbeth-Evans was bought out by Corning Glass Works, then the largest maker of technical glassware.

At the time of the merger, the plant employed 1,800 people. The news was so big it made the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette above the fold on Nov.11, 1936. Today all ...