From SCDigest's On-Target E-Magazine
March 6, 2012
Supply Chain News: Labor Disputes Settled at Cooper Tire and Caterpillar Canada - with Very Different Ends
Cooper Workers In Findlay Finally Reach Deal after Three-Month Lockout; Cat Workers in London See Factory Closed after Refusal to Agree to Major Concessions
SCDigest Editorial Staff
Two high profile North American labor disputes came to an end in the last couple of weeks, with very differing outcomes.
In Findlay, OH, headquarters of Copper Tire, the company started a lockout of just over 1000 factory workers there in late November, after rank and file voted down a tentative agreement that had been reach by union leaders and the company.
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The saga has led to major criticisms in Canada both of Caterpillar and rules relative to direct foreign investments in the country.
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The company slowly ramped up production using temporary workers and a small group of employees from a non-union plant in Mississippi. The lockout dragged on into February, with pressure in a sense applied to the Findlay workers after the company did reach a new contract with the United Steel Workers at a plant in Texarkana, Arkansas, where a new contract was overwhelmingly approved in on Jan. 27.
Many of the locked out workers in Findlay complained that they did not receive much in the way of support from the United Steel Workers. Though it controls a strike fund worth more than $150 million, the union only provided workers a few weeks’ worth of $100 gift cards to buy groceries, leading many to question what good their unions dues were.
After nearly three months out of work, the Findlay workers reached a deal with the company in late February, and returned to work last week.
The contract offered by Cooper noted that "The Findlay Plant must be more competitive, globally, to be able to compete in the marketplace with imported tires from low cost countries into the North American market. Cooper continues to face the challenge of low cost imports and the pricing pressures associated with supply from low cost countries all over the world. Cooper is keenly aware of the necessity to be price competitive in the private label business market, especially against imports. From a business perspective, we must obtain product from where we believe will offer the best opportunity to compete in the marketplace and be profitable."
The new contract is for five years, versus the three years the company originally proposed in November. Wages for workers that have been with the company since 2009 basically keeps their current pay levels, but the company did make some changes to the five-tier wage scale for newer and future workers hired by the company that will reduce those wages.
Cooper also agreed to keep in place a pension program for workers hired before 2009 that it had looked to freeze in earlier proposals.
Different End for Caterpillar Plant in Canada
In early January, Electro-Motive Canada (EMC), a subsidiary of the U.S. company Caterpillar that makes engines for locomotives, had also locked workers there out of a factory in London, Ontario. EMC was said to be demanding that workers accept a 55% cut in wages, drastically reduced benefits, and a significantly reduced pension program.
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"In spite of EMC’s efforts to reach a market-competitive labor agreement that would provide for the future viability of the London facility, the union rejected the company’s final offer on Dec. 27 … We are disappointed that a competitive collective agreement could not be reached with the union,” the company said at the time the lockout was announced.