Earlier tonight I mentioned that union workers at the Mercury Marine plant in Fond Du Lac rejected contract concessions that would have included a 30% wage cut for new hires and employees called back from layoffs and severely slashed retirement and severance benefits, in addition to the 7-year wage freeze union members had already accepted as part of their last negotiated contract with Mercury Marine. While some conservatives have been quick to attack union members for voting to kill their own jobs, Steve Jagler of the Milwaukee Biz Times points out that the real villain in this story may be Mercury Marine:
The question is being asked at dinner tables and water coolers throughout Wisconsin: Why would those union workers at Mercury Marine’s Fond du Lac plant vote against the company’s last contract proposal?
[…]
The first thing to understand is the history that brought the Mercury Fond du Lac contract dispute to this point. The company signed a contract extension through 2012 for the workers in Fond du Lac only last year. “Now, they turn around and say, ‘We need a complete rewrite, from cover to cover, of the contract THEY negotiated. It’s union busting,” said Mike King of the IAMAW. “When it’s told to you across the table by a union-busting consultant (hired by the company), it really leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”
In recent years, Mercury Marine had laid off about 600 people from the Fond du Lac plant and shifted production to China. The laid off employees could not participate in Sunday’s contract vote.
The layoffs left the Fond du Lac plant with a senior-laden workforce. Most of the employees who still have jobs there have 25 to 30 years of experience at the plant. For many of them, retirement is on the near horizon.
Put yourself in their shoes. You are very near retirement. You are making a fine living wage. You have negotiated health care and pension benefits. The company is proposing a new contract that will slash your pay and eliminate most of your benefits, including severance pay for outgoing workers. The contract will cut benefits for retirees and will cut wages for new hires.
Ultimately, it certainly seems as if Mercury Marine intended to move its headquarters and production facility to Stillwater, Oklahoma all along. The company’s request for the union to acquiesce to deeper concessions than the ones the union agreed to during the last round of contract negotiations gave Mercury Marine a convenient scapegoat as they moved to the greener pastures of Stillwater.
However, if I were a worker for Mercury Marine (or a potential worker) in Stillwater, Oklahoma, I wouldn’t be too giddy about the prospect of Mercury Marine creating new jobs in that community. After all, if Mercury Marine is willing to pull up stakes and abandon a community they’ve had a connection with for 70 years, then there won’t be much keeping Mercury from kicking Stillwater to the curb in a few years when the company gets a sweeter deal in Mexico or China or some other country where labor is cheaper.
H/T to Paul Soglin.
The 800 that voted were not going to lose any pay. They just were not going to get raises for a few years. If more people were hired or rehired they would come in at a lower scale. If that agreement kept the company there for 2 more years and I’m a voting member, I take Mercs deal. 2 years of 20/hour or unemployment?? Even YOU should be able to figure that out.
And please stop making it sound like the current employees were going to take a pay cut because it’s not true. Go check the proposal.
ROFLMAO! Don’t tell me that you really believe that they weren’t going to hire the people back at $13 and fire the higher paid workers? The company will be there for two years, if you can even believe them when they said it would take that long to fully relocate. You are so funny! Try paying attention to the facts, not the spin.
Read capper…. The proposal said the current employees (The voting 800) would remain at the same pay scale….. New hires and rehires, if there would be any, would be at a lower scale. Do I need to draw a picture for you?
I know it says that. What it doesn’t say is that the jobs of the remaining employees were guaranteed. Companies have been pulling that bait and switch for a long time now.
Even Scott Walker did it to the nurses. Screwing over nurses. What a guy!
Oh .. Many of the union jobs will be leaving in months not years if the contract is not ratified tonight.
Says who? Were they lying on how long it would consolidate production in OK?
You seem to think they lie on every other topic. Merc said by the end of 24 to 36 months there would be 0 to 200 jobs left. That does NOT mean it’s going to take them that long to move, it’s saying those will be the possible jobs left AFTER that time frame. It could take them 10 months to move and their statement still holds true.
Would you want more of a guarantee of 2 years in a contract that is for 7 years or a possibility of maybe making it 2 years…. Go ask your kids…. They may not make it 7 years but at least you would know for the immediate future that they are not leaving……
There was no guarantee that they would keep the jobs in FDL. The union asked for that language to be in the contract. Merc refused.
Next.
A signed contract would keep the moving trucks away for a while. In this situation I would chose something over nothing.Merc employees will get nothing. If you ratify the contract and they leave on the same schedule as if the contract wasn’t ratified, then you have every right in the world to bitch.
Believe what you want. I have a tendency to believe the people who are paying me, not the people who are making money off me and don’t stand behind me when the times get tough just to “take a stand.”
Yeah, after they give up what they’ve earned, and the truck is pulling away, it’s a little late to do anything but complain.
The Brunswick CEO made over $9M. Who’s making money off of them again? Remember, union officials are also employees.
The signed contract means nothing, if the language isn’t in there.
E, the union has a signed contract that runs through 2012. The issue isn’t the lack of a contract; it’s Mercury Marine’s unwillingness to abide by that contract.
You are of course correct, there is a contract in place. Mercury doesn’t want to abide by it – because they can no longer afford it due to the market crash and because Stillwater can do the work cheaper. But they will abide by the contract…as long as they are in FDL. Agreeing to concessions would have bought the employees time. Maybe long enough that the market recovers. Maybe long enough that Madison get’s their collective heads out of their rears and improves the business climate. Maybe not. But not agreeing to the concessions means it’s over.
All the discussion over fairness is good and well, but it’s really academic. The unchangeable truth of the past few weeks is that the company made a final offer. The choice was to accept it and they stay, reject it and they move.
Again, how do you figure they would stay when they refused the language?
Get over the CEO stuff…. You’re not CEO material. No contract means even less…..
You’re a brainwashed lemming and this fight is futile.
Good night……
You’re not CEO material
That’s rather elitist.
I argue with facts, you argue with suppositions, but I am the lemming. Gotcha.
Holy cow, the guy who says over & over again, “they were leaving no matter what, I just know it” criticizing another for arguing with suppositions. LOL.
Then YOU explain why Merc refused the stay here language.
Because they didn’t have to. Because they don’t know what the future holds and it would be foolish agree eliminate an option when there’s no reason to.
What you don’t seem to understand is that the facts of the situation are that Mercury has nearly all the power right now. You can hate it all you want, but that isn’t changing it. Heck I don’t like it either. I’m a believer in letting the market decide these things and both unions and lopsided state laws are barriers to the market setting pay rates. The union had the upperhand for years and now things have swung back the other way.
Elitist, no.. Observant, yes.
Generally those who hold advanced college degrees and Masters Degrees in something other than the educational field are the guys/gals who hold those CEO positions. Those people generally are the guys/gals who worked their way to the top by working 16 hours a day to be the top in their fields. They don’t care about OT. The don’t care about when or how many breaks they get and they definitely don’t partake in collective bargaining.
You don’t fit this description.
Wow, I don’t know what world you live in, but I’m glad it’s not this one.
And your insinuations show how little you know about me or my colleagues.
But I see that Merc wouldn’t even honor the revote. Kind of proves that they weren’t really interested all along, doesn’t it?
Well please enlighten me about you and your colleagues. I’m dying to hear it. The reason why they didn’t honor a revote is because there wasn’t one. Not enough people showed up…