2 November, 2009
An 18-month contract dispute between the ICEM North American affiliate, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB), and Lafarge at a cement manufacturing plant in the US state of Missouri was finally resolved on 22 October.
A tentative agreement was reached at the Sugar Creek, Missouri, plant between IBB Lodge D-27 and American managers of the French- based company that will see retirees receive the same medical benefits that active workers get, and will push back a different retiree health-benefit scheme for any new employee hired after 1 January 2012.
IBB Vice President Warren Fairly reported that the new agreement, once ratified by the 55 Lodge D-27 members, will run until 1 January 2012. A prior agreement expired on 30 April 2008.
The ICEM and the Building and Woodworkers’ International (BWI), the two Global Union Federations that are signatory to a Global Framework Agreement with Lafarge, brought North American management’s unjust social cuts before senior Lafarge managers in Paris in September and October 2008.
Lafarge had sought to exclude entirely new hires from any future retiree medical plan, and wanted existing workers to enter into a separate, inferior health-care plan upon retirement.
The ICEM congratulates the IBB for its bargaining table endurance to finally get Lafarge to move away from its concessionary 2008 contract agenda. The Sugar Creek cement plant underwent a major modernisation in 2002, and is currently in a ten-week partial shutdown that is expected to last until 11 January 2010 due to the economic downturn in the construction sector.
Some 35 to 40 IBB members are on temporary furloughs, but the union has negotiated retention of their benefits. Teamsters Local 541 represents about ten truck drivers at the Sugar Creek plant as well.