Dealing with Theft's and a Strike at Affordable Furniture Company

While working at Affordable furniture I would normally work the evening shift from 3-11 PM
on Saturdays and Sunday
On Sunday  evening employees would slowly arrive ring the bell and I would unlock the door and let the first ones on to get the plant ready for its shift .
This one employee in Particular David   started showing up earlier and earlier  on Sundays.
One Sunday he started talking about taking one the the boxes  of furniture he makes home when no one was looking. I advised him against it and he would lose his job if caught  but for several weekends he kept talking about it. Then one Sunday he came in even and while I was walking my  last tour around the plant  as he sat in the lunch room I saw   he left the lunch room and I suspected   he stole one of the boxes and put it in his car. .
By that point I figured something was up but my shift was over so I told the next guard on shift to notify a plant supervisor when they got  there they had a possible theft  which he did and the supervisor found the stolen furniture unit in Davids car and he was fired.because of the actions myself and the other guard where moved to other assignments as employees where mad we had busted David. Even thou he was not prosecuted and just let go and thou the plant had a union they never did nothing for him.

I was given a award certificate for stopping the theft  and mentioned in a newsletter article and a I ran into David  on the 53 Carrick bus about 3 years later. He wasn't bitter in fact he was glad to be out of the place he had found a much better job as luck would have it while unemployed a dream job opened up he never would have known of had he been still working. at affordable so as usual life takes all kind of strange twists.

Another theft before this was behind the plant one summer afternoon  I saw 4 young men  walking down the railroad tracks with what looked like brass rods about 1nch thick and 10  feet long thinking they where stolen from the machine parts stored outside the back of the plant I immediately ran inside the plant to use the only working phone and  notified the West Mifflin Police they quickly arrived I pointed where they where heading they took off in there car and I caught up on foot on the hill side behind the plant they had stolen several 2 inch thick copper bars. 12 foot long .the police took them into custody  and asked me to check with other company's around where the bars came from  because the boys where not talking.

I notified the Union Railroad and Scrap yard behind us what was taken to help cops determine where the bars where stolen from but after we all talked to each other and the railroad police stopped by the plant  it ends up the bars where stolen from Westinghouse Transportation next door   now Bombardier Transportation .

Westinghouse wanted this kept quiet because it ends up the young men apprehended where some of the executives sons hired as summer help to cut the grass that summer . The guard over at Westinghouse called me over the next morning and explained what happened and thanked me for getting the thefts stopped and gave me a neat leather portfolio and pocket knife as a thank you which I still have. Including a collar tab CPP gave me

Talking about unions about 6 months before this theft  Affordable Furniture's union called for a strike. Now I have worked the trucker strikes and knew the dangers involved but this strike was peaceful but the management right away hired this  local hard edged strike breaking type security company called "Task Force Security "which showed up with 2 marked vehicles 3 armed guard and a armed  K 9 Officer  run by the son of a Retired Green Tree Police Chief. they no longer seem to be in business . They kept the strikers to the bottom of the driveway while we still patrolled the plant .  There was never any violence or even harsh words uttered during the whole thing  my parents dropped me off one night and where all worried about the strikers who let me up the driveway with no problems . In the end thru negotiations they got what they wanted and both sides compromised but in the end the plant was sold  couple years later and approx . 100 people lost there jobs.
Task Force Security big client at the time of the strike  was the Rook Railroad Yard in Green Tree run by the  Norfolk and western now the Wheeling and Lake Erie railroad. They where there to keep the new cars being transported and stored there safe  and when the mills went down so did activity in this yard and probably lead to task Force Security ether being sold or closed. I never heard again from them after the strike . But thats the way it is with so many guard  company here today gone tomorrow
Of course right now in Pittsburgh theirs a big FBI investigation and indictments are being handed down over a Corrupt police chief and how off duty money paid to officers and city never made it to city coffers and one of the allegations being looked into is officers running security guard company's with out having the proper state private detective license .
as you can see the security game just keeps going on and on.

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