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13 January, 2012
The ICEM vehemently supports 90 members of the affiliated Teamsters Union (IBT) in the US, who went on strike last month in Norwood, Massachusetts, at CertainTeed, a roofing materials subsidiary of French multinational Saint-Gobain. Members of IBT Local 25 in the Boston area walked off their jobs when their contract expired on 19 December over unreasonable demands to reduce their health insurance benefits.
In an ICEM letter today to Local 25 President Sean O’Brien, General Secretary Manfred Warda said the dispute would receive the Global Union Federation’s highest priority and would be brought to the attention of French trade unions and senior executives at Saint-Gobain in Paris.
CertainTeed, a wholly-owned subsidiary with multiple plants in the US that manufacture asphalt roofing shingles, gypsum wallboard, and insulated fiberglass products, proposes to reduce the amount of health insurance it pays on workers, leaving them largely unprotected financially from illness or injury.
“The company has become the epitome of greed, treating its workforce unfairly without regard for health and welfare and job security,” said O’Brien, the principal officer of 11,000-member IBT Local 25. In order to preserve the joint union-management run health care plan, the union proposed costs savings to the company on a pension plan that would not reduce workers’ retirement benefits. But CertainTeed wasn’t interested.
At this point in the strike, CertainTeed workers would be without health insurance of any kind. But at a strike manifestation rally in front of plant gates on 5 January, O’Brien announced that Local 25’s Health and Welfare Fund would continue to provide health insurance at a cost to the union. The ICEM commends Local 25 for such social responsibility.
The two sides are scheduled to meet today before the US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) in the first negotiations since the strike began. Saint-Gobain increased its stake in CertainTeed from 32% to 57% in 1976, and then gained total ownership in 1988. In 1998, CertainTeed bought the Norwood plant from Bird & Sons
Local 25’s so-called Taft-Hartley health care plan at Norwood pre-dates CertainTeed ownership, and the union is adamant in retaining it. The company proposes to replace it with a lesser company-controlled insurance plan that contains far few benefits.