23 January, 2012
A month-long strike by the ICEM-affiliated Teamsters Union (IBT) in the US continues, despite a union proposal put forward in a US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) session on 13 January that would save the company pension costs, while preserving workers’ health care benefits – the key issue in the strike.
The work stoppage by 90 members of IBT Local 25 in Massachusetts against Paris-based Saint-Gobain’s wholly-owned CertainTeed subsidiary began on 19 December over unreasonable demands to reduce workers’ health insurance benefits. In the FMCS session, the union showed how CertainTeed could save costs by taking advantage of a new programme offered by the New England Teamsters Pension Fund in exchange for remaining in a joint union-management health care fund.
CertainTeed refused the offer. On 13 January, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda wrote to Local 25 President Sean O’Brien and IBT President James Hoffa, stating that the dispute would receive the ICEM’s highest priority and would be brought to the attention of French trade unions and senior executives at Saint-Gobain in Paris. That ICEM letter can be seen here.
Now with the company turning away from a common sense resolve to the dispute, IBT Local 25 will broaden the Norwood, Massachusetts, strike within the US and has begun handbilling workers at other CertainTeed factories there. The company manufactures asphalt roofing shingles, gypsum wallboard, and insulated fiberglass products.
The strike started when CertainTeed, based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, sought to remove itself from the joint health care plan and opting for an inferior company-controlled plan that contains far fewer benefits. The cost to the company would be less, but workers would have far fewer health benefits, 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.
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 this social responsibility.
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 – the union-management plan administered by the union – pre-dates CertainTeed’s ownership of the Norwood plant and Local 25 and CertainTeed’s Massachusetts workers are adamant that it be retained.