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On February 26, nearly 2,000 members of the United Electricity, Radio and Machine Workers of the United States (EU) left their jobs at a former locomotive manufacturing plant in Erie, California. Pennsylvania, during the biggest US strike in the manufacturing sector since 2016. arrived just a day after the plant began operating under its new owner, the Wabtec Corporation of Wilmerding, Pennsylvania.
"It's corporate greed and the destruction of union 101."
-Brad McCurdy, journeyman electrician
In 2018, Wabtec merged with GE Transportation, a division of General Electric that has operated a locomotive plant at Erie for more than 100 years. EU members have a contract with GE since 1938, according to union spokesman Jonathan Kissam, and this contract has provided generations of Erie residents what Kissam calls "good jobs." at Rust Belt ".
These jobs have provided plant employees with a more stable lifestyle, with average wages of $ 35 / hour and a work schedule from Monday to Friday, according to Kissam, have allowed members of the EU to actively participate in life outside the factory. "Our members are very involved in the Erienne community as Little League coaches, in churches and for veterans' causes," Kissam said in an interview with In these times.
It is this quality of life and connection with the wider Erie community that EU members are trying to protect themselves and future generations by going on strike, "says Kissam.
Indeed, the new factory owners, Wabtec, have so far refused to honor the EU contract with GE, even on a temporary 30 day basis, as proposed by the syndicate. The company has instead attempted to impose immediate changes to the employees' working conditions. These changes include a proposal for pay cuts of up to 38% for new and recalled workers, creating what union representatives such as Scott Slawson, President of Local 506 of the EU, have said. called a "second permanent level of lower wages".
Kissam recalls attending a recent meeting of EU members. When participants were asked how many parents or children were also working at the locomotive factory, many hands were raised. These strong family ties make EU members particularly opposed to any two-tier wage proposal, in Kissam's view, because "they consider two levels resell to sell their own children and the Erie community".
A Huffington Post article noted that this fear is justified. "Unions are wary of two-tier systems for a good reason," says Dave Jamieson. As well-paid older workers retire, they are replaced by less established employees who "know that they will never earn the same salary as their veteran counterparts". This could potentially create discord within the union, a problem that, according to Jamieson, has surfaced in other recent large-scale union negotiations.
Brad McCurdy is a journeyman electrician who has been working at the Erie manufacturing plant for 14 years. As a member of the EU, he tells In these times he feels both pride and kinship on strike, as well as fear of the result.
With regard to Wabtec's reluctance to accept a 30-day extension of the current EU employment contract, while demanding what it considers to be "major concessions" on wages and benefits, Mr. McCurdy does not mince his words: "It's corporate greed and the destruction of unions." 101 He highlights Wabtec's significant profit margins and insists that the union's desire to the strike is "directly related to the preservation of jobs for our community and the preservation of wages that preserve the family".
In an opinion piece published on February 26 in the Erie Times News, Greg Sbrocco, director of Wabtec's manufacturing plants, sought to justify lower wages by saying it was "a common practice of US manufacturing firms to aggressively compete with their competitors in low-cost countries like China or Mexico ". However, Wabtec is a very profitable company whose sales are expected to reach $ 9 billion in 2019, according to recent reports.
Wabtech chief executive Raymond Betler also received a compensation package worth $ 3.5 million last year, according to a statement released by the Vermont senator and the presidential candidate of 2020, Bernie Sanders. Sanders offered his support to striking EU members by insisting that "business leaders should not use the merger between GE and Wabtec to hurt workers." Other information sites have noted the fact that this merger accounted for $ 11 billion.
Kissam says Erie's factory is an excellent example of what happens when companies seek lower wages in an attempt to compete with what Sbrocco calls "low-cost countries." In 2011, while GE Transportation was still owned by Erie's factory, the company transferred hundreds of jobs to a new locomotive manufacturing site in Fort Worth, Texas, a rule of law workplace where the unions have little power.
In 2017, GE Transportation then announced its intention to completely shut down the Erie plant and transfer all locomotive manufacturing jobs to the non-union Fort Worth site. These plans were later sabotaged while GE Transportation sought instead to sell its transportation division. The union leaders allege, however, that the attempt to transfer all manufacturing jobs to Texas has had unfortunate consequences, as company executives have realized that building a large locomotive does not have a negative impact. was not simple and that it actually required the type of highly skilled and permanent workforce provided by the Erie factory.
In 2018 Erie Times-News According to the article, GE Transportation is a successful operation, customer orders and the profits of the company accumulating. The EU press release, published on February 20, stated that "GE Transportation has consistently made profits of more than 16% over the past five years, thanks to the skilled work of EU members. at the flagship factory of Erie. "
"People prefer to work than to strike, but they are not willing to entrust all aspects of their lives to the boss, and they are unwilling to create a permanent underclass of low-wage workers."
-Jonathan Kissam, union spokesman
Kissam claims that EU members were optimistic when Wabtec bought GE Transportation in 2018. Relations with GE's executives had become more difficult, he said, and the workers hoped to be under the umbrella of Wabtec, the company seemingly likely to be more stable and less enterprise to upset the operations that GE had been. From the beginning, however, EU leaders accused Wabtec of refusing to bargain in good faith.
"Wabtech told us their general conditions in December," said Kissam, but "serious negotiations" only started earlier in February. Members quickly opposed Wabtec's insistence on such things as "mandatory overtime and arbitrary schedules," Kissam said. When Wabtec resumed plant operations on February 25, factory workers decided to quit work rather than abide by the new owner's conditions.
Wabtec maintained that its proposals were reasonable, forward-looking and competitive for the region.
"People prefer to work than to strike, but they do not want to entrust all aspects of their lives to the boss, and they do not want to create a permanent subclass of low-wage workers," Kissam insisted. He also notes that the strike comes at a time when the public has renewed its support for workers' rights. "I think EU members also feel that there is a greater willingness to fight more widely among the workers", partly thanks to what Kissam calls "the success of recent strikes teachers".
Until now, no new contract is planned for Wabtec and the EU, which means that there is no clear end to the strike. For McCurdy, the fight is clear. Wabtec earns millions, he says, "while asking us to make concessions.It's the dirty pool."
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