Union Plans to Sue Can Maker Over Van Nuys Plant’s Demise : Labor: Workers say Crown, Cork & Seal went back on a deal to reopen its quake-damaged facility in exchange for wage concessions of up to $5 an hour.

Unionized workers are vowing to sue aluminum can maker Crown, Cork & Seal Co., claiming the company reneged on an agreement to reopen its Van Nuys plant in exchange for wage concessions after the plant was damaged in the Northridge earthquake.

Crown officials told the union representing the plant’s 125 workers in a conference call April 18 that it would not reopen this summer, said Dick Schneider, grand lodge representative with the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The plant, near the Van Nuys Airport, still sports visible cracks in its edifice.

“There’s going to be litigation on our part,” Schneider said. “We’re not going to sit back.”

Officials for Crown, Cork & Seal, based in Philadelphia, could not be reached for comment.

Since the quake, most of the plant’s 125 workers have not been back to work, although some have returned to prepare equipment for sale and remove stock from the site. Workers at the Crown plant in Van Nuys had earned up to $18.80 an hour before the quake. However, the union made wage concessions of up to $5 an hour to get the plant reopened, said union steward Frank Mendoza of District 94, Local 1600.

“We’ve done everything that has been asked of us,” he said. “And they have reneged.”

Schneider estimated that Crown had spent $20 million so far renovating the Van Nuys structure. The company had previously said it planned to spend $37 million to renovate the facility, which suffered a collapsed roof and other structural damage.

News that Crown was not reopening the Van Nuys plant disappointed local economic and political leaders, some of whom had organized into a task force of state agencies to expedite the regulatory process.

Crown had received machinery permits “in record time,” said Larry Watkins, program supervisor for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. He said the permitting process, which could have taken six months, was handled in less than 30 days.

“We were fairly confident” that Crown was going to reopen the Van Nuys plant, he said.

Crown had also reached a tentative agreement with the state for hazardous waste cleanup, according to Richard Varenchik, a spokesman for the state Toxic Substances Control Department in Glendale.

The decision by Crown, with $4.2 billion in annual sales, comes at a time when can makers are being squeezed by increasing costs for raw materials and pressure from their beverage maker customers not to pass on higher costs, said Timothy P. Burns, a vice president and packing industry analyst for CS First Boston.

Crown maintains other California facilities in La Mirada, San Leandro and Union City.