Rochester, PA: Lost/Pittsburgh Bridge and Iron Company

(Satellite, in the southwest quadrant of Pleasant Street and New York Avenue)

David Holoweiko posted
Inside PB&I Rochester PA 1910  Pittsburgh Bridge and Iron was one of the largest makers of bridges and structural builds clear into the 60's.
Pat McCon: I worked there from 1972 to 1975. What a miserable place. The union hated the company and vice versa. Our big goal seemed to be keeping Rochester Township politicians in power. I’m happy that I got my start in industrial safety there, as a USW Local 1204 Safety Rep., but I’m not proud of how we acted. If the owner had been any kind of man he’d have taken control. He’d have made sure that management managed the place while the workers were treated well. Instead the inmates ran the asylum while he stood back and paid little attention to the collapse of his father’s business. We sat in the rest room for hours, and the foremen weren’t allowed to come in after us. When the office people walked thru we’d hoot at them and call them names. But they deserved it; when one of the guys suffered a career-ending femur fracture while hooking up poorly-piled crop ends for the K-saw, the boss yelled at us to quit gawking and get back to work with a line I’ll never forget - ‘One monkey don’t stop no show.’ It took a long time for me to come down from being a workplace radical. Meanwhile we put PBI out of business with one of our frequent wildcat strikes. Illegally, of course, sanctioned by the International union. I remember the staff man hiding in the back of a union official’s car while we picketed. Bad times.

Jim Hewett Jr.: Pat McCon sounds terrible from both sides. Thanks for your honesty in painting the full picture, and not just one view or the other. It takes 2 to Tango as they say. Refreshing not to hear the usual one sided it's only the management or it's only the union members at fault.

Unfortunately that kind of behavior on the employees side of your story is the kind of way non or anti union people perceive all union workers to act like.

Pat McCon: One good thing that came out of the place - George Swartz. George was a young safety director learning the trade at PBI. When we went on strike in ~1975 and I bailed out for J&L I lost track of him. Imagine my surprise when I saw him years later - in the 90s when I’d grown up and become a safety professional. George was a forklift safety expert, a published author, and a force in the American Society of Safety Engineers. It was too good to last, though. He died at a way-too-young age before he could cement his legacy. https://rowman.com/.../Forklift-Safety-A-Practical-Guide...

Arron Kotlensky commented on David's post

Dennis DeBruler commented on Arron's comment
The map doesn't include a cross street. But it appears in this 1952 aerial photo that it was in the southwest quadrant of Pleasant Street and New York Avenue. [AR1NZ0000020191

It is noteworthy that this topo map includes the factory even though it is in a red area. I would expect it to show the Pennsy depot.

1953 Beaver Quad @ 24,000