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29 November, 2010
Negotiations to end a 23-week lockout by Honeywell Inc. against 228 members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 in the US state of Illinois failed last week. The American company, which converts yellow-cake uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at the Metropolis, Illinois, plant, continued its inflexibility in finding a resolve to the dispute and to return experienced workers to their jobs.
The 22-23 November bargaining came four days after many of the locked-out workers rode a bus throughout the night to demonstrate at Honeywell’s corporate headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey. The manifestation was meant to convince senior Honeywell executives that it was finally time to conduct serious bargaining and end the lockout, according to Local 7-669 President Darrell Lillie.
Local 7-699 members at Honeywell's New Jersey offices, 18 November
But at last week’s bargaining, Honeywell only agreed to pay workers their accrued 2009 vacation time in pay, something owed them anyway because most workers had been denied their legitimate work furloughs this year due to the lockout. Further bargaining is scheduled for 13-14 December.
Meanwhile, the transnational technology and manufacturing company continues to use scab replacement workers to run the highly dangerous plant, one which transforms uranium into UF6 gas and then is frozen and sold for feed to the nuclear enrichment process.
Honeywell has replaced the locked-out workers with 200 scabs from the Shaw Group, Unbelievably, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted certification to re-start the four-stage production process in September. Since, the NRC has issued a number of violations for work infractions.
Issues that separate USW Local 7-699 and Honeywell are retirement benefits and the company’s demand to create a two-tier pension scheme; Honeywell’s insistence on gaining broad contracting-out rights, which could mean the loss of many jobs and possible elimination of entire in-house departments; and weakening of workers’ seniority rights.
Honeywell has offered a 3% pay increase, but its pension and work-rule demands are so detrimental that Local 7-669 has offered to accept a wage freeze for continuation of current contract items.
The union has been uplifted by the tremendous support given workers by trade unions in southern Illinois, Kentucky, and elsewhere. Notably, Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 160 of Murphysboro, Illinois, has provided money and food to locked-out steelworkers, and soon will hold a Christmas party for workers’ children.
USW Local 550 in nearby Paducah, Kentucky, whose members are employed by US Enrichment Corp., a private sector company that buys Honeywell’s UF6, also has contributed greatly, as has local branch unions of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and the United Auto Workers (UAW). And recently, a financial contribution was sent to Local 7-699 from Germany’s IGBCE union.
Prior ICEM reports on this lockout in the US can be found here and here.