Workers at a Charleroi glass plant learned this week the Pyrex cookware factory would remain open for at least three months, extending its operation through the end of July, a union official said.

Some union workers at the Corelle Brands LLC who were anticipating a layoff learned on Thursday that plant management was keeping the glass plant open a bit longer, said James Watt, a United Steelworkers staff representative for Local Union 53G.

About 200 union workers remain on the job, Watt said. They also received a six-month union contact giving them a 10% wage hike. That agreement expires on Aug. 31, although the company is anticipating shuttering operations sometime in May, Watt said.

“It’s a bit of a reprieve. Maybe they will get it through their heads that they need this plant. Who knows. We’ll just wait and see what happens,” Watt said Friday.

In January, Corelle Brands notified the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry in an amended Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification that it was delaying its planned closing of production from Feb. 17 to April 30. The state has not received a notice of the latest delayed closing, said Trevor Monk, a spokesman for the labor and industry department.

With the delay in closing, Watt said the company will be stocking more soda ash and sand to make glassware.

A spokesperson for Corelle Brands, which is owned by the private equity firm of Centre Lane Partners of New York, could not be reached for comment.

Corelle Brands notified the workers last September than it planned to close the Charleroi plant, which for decades was operated by Corning Glass, and move production to a plant in Lancaster, Ohio. Those layoffs were to start before Christmas, but were delayed until Jan. 27 and were to continue through April 16.

Corelle Brands notified the state in January it was delaying the closure because of what it referred to as operational needs through the transition of the plant closing. Brandon Eichorn, Corelle Brands legal operations director, wrote in a letter to the state last month that customer demands may require some employees remain on the job beyond the anticipated layoff date

Corelle already has moved some of its equipment from the Charleroi plant and is operating it in Ohio, Watt said. A federal judge in November denied a state attempt to keep Corelle from moving operations to Ohio. Watt said he recently lost an arbitration case in which he sought to prevent Corelle from moving equipment out of the Charleroi plant.

The company’s failure to give advance notice of its decision to keep the plant open for three more months may have interfered with some glass workers’ plans to start another job, Watt said.

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