GARY | The troubles for a scrapyard being taken to court for alleged code violations multiplied this week when employees walked out in a pay dispute and then were fired.
About 14 employees of Summit Inc. gathered across the street on Chicago Avenue on Wednesday morning and talked of paychecks being as much as a month late and alleged they were never paid for many of the hours they worked. The scrapyard was the scene of a two-day fire in November.
"They will never tell us anything about why they are late," truck driver Jose Godinez said. "And when you ask why, he says, 'There's the door. You can leave if you want.'"
Owner Peter Coulopoulos faces codes violations in Gary City Court, including operating without a city business license. A number of the violations were added to an earlier complaint after city firefighters and other officials inspected the scrapyard two weeks after the Nov. 19 fire.
A Times reporter who went to the scrapyard asking for Coulopoulos on Wednesday was told to leave and a phone call later was not returned.
The Nov. 19 fire at Summit forced the evacuation of a nearby trucking depot as well as the Boeing corporate flight headquarters next door at Gary/Chicago International Airport. The airport has long had its own issues with Summit, alleging loud explosions there shake airport buildings, including Boeing's.
"We support the city of Gary's efforts to bring Summit into compliance, and we have pledged to assist the city in any way they ask," Gary airport authority lawyer Patrick Lyp said Wednesday.
The case is scheduled for a Jan. 25 hearing in Gary City Court.
The company also has had problems with environmental compliance. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management issued a letter the day before the fire requiring Summit to correct several violations found during an earlier inspection, IDEM spokesman Barry Sneed said. Several of the problems had been resolved by the end of November, and IDEM was working with Summit to correct others.
IDEM also sent an emergency responder to the November fire and is evaluating if "stronger, formal enforcement action might be needed."
The company also has financial problems. Near the end of December, a federal judge put Summit Inc. into limited receivership, after Bank of America brought an action against the company to recover more than $4.9 million. That receivership leaves Coulopoulos running the day-to-day operations of the scrapyard, but a court-appointed receiver oversees all its financial dealings.
On Wednesday, the 14 former employees gathered in an empty lot on Chicago said they were pushed to the breaking point on the pay issue by the holidays followed by the first of the month, when rent and some of their mortgage payments were due.
On Tuesday, only about half the employees had received paychecks due the previous week, while others still were waiting, said truck driver Dave Fezler, of Griffith.
"Everyone got together and sat down and said, 'We are not working until we have the cash,'" Fezler said.
By Wednesday afternoon, Fezler said some of the former employees already had talked to an investigator from the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour division about filing a complaint.