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4 July, 2011
With collective bargaining set to resume in two weeks time, Honeywell Inc. continues to place the residents of Metropolis, Illinois, in the US at risk by operating a uranium conversion plant with inexperienced scab workers. On 28 June 2010, Honeywell Inc. ruthlessly locked 228 American steelworkers off their jobs and nine days ago, on 25 June, those union members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669, together with 800 supporters, held a one-year anniversary rally in the Metropolis town square.
The mood at the 25 June rally was somber and angry due to Honeywell’s economic stranglehold on workers’ lives. It was also defiant because the company has dared to risk the safety and well-being of 6,400 residents of this Ohio River city.
When the lockout began, Honeywell assured the union that it would not operate the plant. The company reversed itself a month into the lockout, and now has exhibited the same disrespect in collective negotiations by rescinding contract provisions immediately after agreeing to them.
In Metropolis, Honeywell mills yellow-cake uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) that is frozen and then sold to companies for nuclear power applications. For the past nine months, Honeywell has been using scabs provided by a contractor to do this dangerous work. The results show in Honeywell’s environmental and health and safety record.
At the 25 June mobilisation, workers and community members took notice once again to the dangers an outside workforce brings to their city: on 22 June, the US Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) levied 17 serious workplace safety violations against the company and its scab workers.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have also cited Honeywell with major violations since the lockout began in June 2010. Three months ago, Honeywell pleaded guilty and was sentenced by the US government to a fine of US$11.8 million for knowingly storing hazardous waste without a permit.
“You begin to wonder about Honeywell’s credibility when you consider the nearly US$12 million in federal fines Honeywell was forced to pay this past March for violations cited by the EPA,” said Local 7-669 President Darrell Lillie.
The OSHA violations issued in late June stem from a 22 December 2010 release of hydrogen fluoride (HF) vapors. (See USW Local 7-669 release.) Honeywell refused OSHA's right to conduct its inspection with an employee representative despite the OSHA inspectors holding a federal warrant to do so.
Honeywell put the city of Metropolis and Massac County, Illinois, at risk just weeks into the lockout when it decided to operate the workplace. On 5 September 2010, two days after the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission unbelievably gave approval for Honeywell to re-start the final two steps of a four-step uranium hexafluoride converting process, Metropolis was shook by a loud boom.
Inside the plant, accumulated hydrogen reacted with fluorine gas during a venting process, causing the boom. Fortunately, the accident occurred in a non-regulated area of operation, meaning away from the handling of yellow cake uranium.
For workers and community supporters who gathered on 25 June, these incidents have become a daily reminder of the threats posed by a hugely profitable company as it unnecessarily attempts to spiral downward work terms on a skilled and dedicated workforce.
To be sure, USW Local 7-669 and Honeywell would already have a new labour contract and experienced workers would be back on the job if it had not been for the company reneging on a deal. In bargaining on 6 June, the two sides reached a compromise and a tentative agreement was imminent. Honeywell’s negotiators said it would draft the agreed-upon language and formally present it the next day in talks.
But on 7 June, the company withdrew the proposed agreement from the day before that would maintain overtime pay after eight and 12 hours worked, and returned to its original and regressive proposal of time-and-a-half pay only after 40 hours had been worked. Local 7-669’s bargaining team already had made compromises to end the lockout. But the bad-faith reversal meant Honeywell was not ready for the lockout to end.
The effect was another insult aimed at the community and at steelworkers of Local 7-669, who most assuredly will return – perhaps soon – to their jobs but with a bitter taste in their mouths about all things Honeywell.
On Friday, 1 July, the two sides agreed to resume bargaining on 19-20 July.
The overtime issue is now paramount. Other issues to be resolved, but not considered deal threatening, are company insistence that workers who take Family and Medical Leave under the US federal statute, must concurrently take vacation leave; a different pension pan for future new hires; and company-paid meal allowance for staff who work overtime hours.
At the Saturday, 25 June rally, USW District 7 Director Jim Robinson headlined the event. He and steelworkers and retirees from Chicago and northern Indiana travelled seven hours on buses to support Local 7-669. The ICEM calls on Honeywell to stop its hazardous conduct in America’s heartland, and to reach satisfactory terms with USW Local 7-669.