4 August, 20112 August 2011 members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 in Metropolis, Illinois, ratified a three-year labour agreement with Honeywell, Inc., ending the lockout started over a year ago on June 28, 2010.
USA: The ratification vote came 13 days after conclusion of a negotiating settlement (see earlier report here http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=27185&l=2). The delay was due to the fact that Honeywell managers at the uranium converting facility were negligent in giving explicit back-to-work assignments to locked-out workers.
At Metropolis Honeywell facility 228 steelworkers convert milled uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) which is used in nuclear fuel enrichment.
According to the report of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) "the lock-out was marked by Honeywell's decision to resume full production nine weeks into the company's work stoppage and then re-start operations with inexperienced scab replacement workers. Twice in the months that followed, the plant saw near-miss tragedies due to mishandling of dangerous chemicals."
Local 7-669 members will begin returning to work on 15 August. Some 150 workers will return then to training and re-certification by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Forty workers will return two weeks later for the same, and the remainder two weeks after that. The unionized workforce will number about 220 workers when the experienced and qualified USW members are fully back to work.
The negotiated settlement preserves most of the key union-protection provisions that Honeywell was trying to strip away at the start of the lockout, including seniority, job bidding, overtime, and retention of a defined benefit pension plan for existing workers, as well as retiree medical benefits that go along with that plan.
For more details visit the ICEM website at http://www.icem.org/en/3-Energy-Oil-and-Gas/4599-Troubled-to-End-USW-Union-Ratifies-US-Honeywell-Contract.