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6 September, 2010
A ten-day strike by the ICEM North American affiliate Teamsters Union against a subsidiary of Swiss-based Holcim ended 25-26 August when 130 union members at two branch locals ratified a three-year collective agreement with a 90% vote.
The strike in the US state of Massachusetts was highlighted by Teamsters members from three other local branches blockading some 20 cement plants and terminals in Massachusetts and neighbouring New Hampshire. Those locals have contracts that expire in the future, making the show of support to truck drivers and plant operators of Locals 25 and 170 an exemplary example of solidarity.
The strike and rolling actions came against Aggregate Industries, a wholly-owned Holcim subsidiary in the US and UK.
Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 25, Mark Harrington
The Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 25, Mark Harrington, described terms of the new agreement as satisfactory, with the union solidly protecting wages, pensions, and health care coverage, while compromising with American management over some work rules.
“The strategy worked,” said Harrington. “By extending picket lines we were able to impact the company economically.”
Harrington himself extended gratitude to Swiss trade union Unia for its intervention in the strike. He said company negotiators made note of that fact – with some surprise – at the US federal mediation session on 25 August that produced the settlement. The ICEM also intervened with Holcim during the strike.
Teamsters Locals 42, 633, and another unit of Local 25 that has a different expiration date with Aggregate Industries not only honoured roving pickets at the company’s New England operations, but members of those local branches joined the pickets.
Regarding those solidarity actions, the ICEM considers it heroic deeds in defending and winning a new labour agreement because the Holcim subsidiary was readying the hire of replacement workers as its strategy to break the strike.