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6 September, 2010
A lockout of 230 steelworkers by the American-based electronics firm Honeywell continues into month four at the company’s uranium hexaflouride (UF6) plant in the state of Illinois. Honeywell locked out members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 on 28 June over workers’ refusal to accept steep out-of-pocket increases to their health care plan, as well as complete elimination of retiree health care coverage.
The company’s demands are a slap in the face to workers who must toil inside an industry rife with hazards and long-term health risks. The plant in Metropolis, Illinois, on the Ohio River, is America’s only facility that mills “yellow cake” uranium into frozen fluid UF6 for enrichment use in nuclear reactors.
The health risks to the community have become even more pronounced because Honeywell seeks to regain lost production by using temporary replacement workers, a draconian American management practice used in employer-imposed lockouts. Although the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not as yet authorized untrained scab workers to operate the Metropolis facility, Honeywell has retained a nuclear contracting firm called the Shaw Group to supply replacement workers.
The mayor of Metropolis, Billy McDaniel, expressed concern over community safety in a report in the St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch newspaper last month. With trained union workers represented by the former Oil, Chemical, Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) operating the facility dating back 46 years before that union’s 2005 merger with the USW, McDaniel said, “I never went to bed at night worried about the men being trained and capable of doing their jobs. I want to do that every night.”
Added Chief Sheriff’s Department Deputy Ted Holder of Massac County, the governmental unit responsible for evacuation and emergency response in the event of a disaster, the use of non-regular employees to restart the facility is “a little concerning.”
USW Local 7-669 offered to continue working under a prior three-year labour agreement that expired on 21 June 2010. The union is seeking no salary adjustments, but seeks to retain current health coverage. When the USW did not concede to granting management a 24-hour strike notice prior to any potential strike, Honeywell locked workers off their jobs.
Under Honeywell’s proposal, out-of-pocket health coverage will increase to US$8,500 per worker each year. And besides eliminating company-paid health coverage for current retirees, Honeywell’s regressive proposals include establishing a two-tier pension scheme with future hires relegated to an inferior plan.
On 7 August, 3,000 union supporters traveled from across the American Midwest to Metropolis to lend support to Local 7-669. Earlier, and directly in front of the uranium enrichment facility, the Steelworker local branch erected 42 Christian crosses in memory of former workers who have died over the years from cancer. They erected another 27 smaller crosses as symbols of workers currently diagnosed with cancer.
“What we do is a very, very dangerous job,” stated Local 7-669 President Darrell Lillie. “We deal with the worse acids known to man.”