Charleroi, Pennsylvania, business owner says immigrant population works jobs Americans do not want

CHARLEROI, Pa. (KDKA) — A business owner in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, said the immigrant population is working jobs Americans do not want. 

It’s a 24-hour, round-the-clock operation of packaging tens of thousands of prepared food items for major retailers.

“This is a day shift in one of our bowl rooms,” David Barbe of Fourth Street Foods. “We operate 26 production lines for sandwiches, dinner and breakfast bowls.”

Barbe has 1,000 employees. Of the 700 or so who work the assembly line, almost all are immigrants here legally on protected status from troubled countries like Haiti, Liberia and Nepal. The hours are long and monotonous, and Barbe says he gets almost no local applicants. 

“They’re not taking jobs away from people in Charleroi?” KDKA-TV’s Andy Sheehan asked.

“If I had 300 Americans come in today and they wanted to work, we’d make room for them,” Barbe said. 

“It’s not glorious work, line assembly work,” he added. “You might put the lid on 60,000 sandwiches a day.”

But for immigrants like Wellington Reiley, who fled political strife and poverty in Liberia, a job here has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

“America has a lot to offer,” Reiley said. “So, that’s why some of us as immigrants have come to capture, we come with that kind of mindset because we have been deprived by our own country of these kinds of opportunities.”

While most longtime residents KDKA-TV spoke with are supportive, others privately complained about their driving and how they can’t understand the languages they speak. But Joe Manning, the borough’s manager, said they’re an asset, bringing new vitality to a town that’s suffered from unemployment and blight since the death of big steel. 

“They come here, they buy property, they open businesses, they work here, they pay taxes,” Manning said. “So for us, at the end of the day, it has been a benefit.”

Today, Reiley is a United States citizen. He has opened up a business of his own and dresses in Steeler black and gold as a tribute to that success. 

“I do love Charleroi, and I love Pittsburgh,” Reiley said. “I try to identify with them and show my loyalty and support by purchasing a T-shirt.”

There are some tensions and there are growing pains. But on balance, the borough says these immigrants have been an asset rather than a problem. 

Andy Sheehan

KDKA-TV Investigator Andy Sheehan began his broadcast journalism career in September 1992, when he joined KDKA after reporting for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for nine years. Andy’s forte is the in-depth investigative story, exposing corruption and government waste.