Union OKs strike at EP, but gives company time to revise offer

May 02, 2008 10:33 pm

— By Melissa Dunson
mdunson@joplinglobe.com
Brenda McCollum, of Joplin, spent last week packing up her belongings from her workstation at EaglePicher Technologies’ plant at C Street and Porter Avenue with the full expectation that she wouldn’t be back for a while.
But after a nearly two-hour meeting Friday with other members of the Local 812, United Steelworkers of America, she will be back on the job starting Monday, at least for now.
The 252 union members voted to strike, but give EaglePicher Technologies two more weeks to come back with another proposed contract.
Teresa Buckmaster, vice president of Local 812, said if during the next two weeks, union officials don’t think significant progress is being made, they will give the company a 24-hour notice that all union employees are walking off the job. Buckmaster said three-fourths of the members at the meeting Friday voted in favor of a strike, and nearly half of that group wanted to walk out immediately and take up picket signs Friday night.
Creed Jones, vice president of EP Technologies’ human resources department, said while he wished the union had accepted the last proposed three-year contract, he was pleased with the results of Friday’s union meeting.
“EaglePicher Technologies is pleased that an imminent strike has been averted,” Jones said. “It’s good for employees who won’t have to leave pay and benefits, and it’s good for the company because we won’t have interrupted production.”
Jones said EP Technologies is still committed to negotiating with the union and will continue to meet with the group’s representatives.
The biggest problems union members and officials had with the rejected EP Technologies contract are changes in job classifications, increased health-care premiums and changes to the pension plan.
Cheryl Miller, of Carl Junction, a manufacturing specialist at EP Technologies, said with the rejected contract she would make less money in 2011 than she does today because her proposed yearly wage increase won’t keep up with the rises in the company’s proposed health-care premiums.
“Because of the cost to insure my family, that (proposed) 40-cent (hourly wage) increase this year will only end up being a 14-cent increase,” Miller said.
Buckmaster said the biggest reason the union members rejected the contract was proposed changes in job classification that would lower some workers’ hourly wages, while raising others. But union leaders allege the changes would also do away with the existing seniority structure. It was a point that Buckmaster said the union was not willing to negotiate on.
“We are not going to give up our seniority,” Buckmaster said. “It’s the reason most of these people wanted to walk out.”
But not all the union workers were happy about the decision to strike.
Bob McGinnis, of Riverton, Kan., an electrical installer for EP Technologies, said he wished his father was still alive so he could have asked his opinion about the recent unrest at the company. McGinnis is a 13-year member of the Local 812, and comes from a family with 75 years of history with various labor unions. While his father weathered his way through several strikes, McGinnis said this will be his first, and he’s not sure he has the stomach for it.
McGinnis voted not to strike Friday. He worries about how he will make ends meet if it comes down to the picket lines.
“This is not the time to strike, with the economy the way it is,” he said. “This is going to hurt. It’s going to put 252 people out of a job. I don’t totally agree with (the rejected contract), but I’d rather take a screw and still take home some money every week, than take a screw and not.”
McGinnis said if the union gives the orders to walk away from the job site, he will probably try to find a job somewhere else, and that, he said, will probably require him having to move away.
Buckmaster said this is the first strike in the history of Local 812 since it started representing steelworkers in the late 1990s. The group did strike at EaglePicher in 1980 when it represented rubber workers.


Local 812 background
EaglePicher Technologies is one of the largest battery manufacturers for the U.S. Department of Defense. It has local manufacturing plants in Joplin, Seneca, and Pittsburg, Kan. Local 812, United Steelworkers of America labor union, represents 252 workers at the plant at C and Porter streets in Joplin. EaglePicher officials estimate that 25 percent of its work force at the plant is represented by the union.

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