A unionized plant in Arkansas, with 300 employees, has announced that it will likely be closing at the end of 2015 as a result of United Steelworkers-represented members voting to reject a company offer that could have kept the plant open.
Now, because Arkansas is a Right-to-Work state where non-union employees do not vote on contracts, a group of employees—which also includes union members who voted for the company’s offer—are attempting to decertify the union, according to the Magnolia Reporter.
In February, Zodiac Elastomer–which produces a variety of fuel cells for the aerospace industry and is owned by French-based company, Zodiac Aerospace–proposed a profit-sharing program to employees, in exchange for taking a wage concession to help make the money-losing plant become more attractive to potential buyers.
A highly placed company official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that United Steelworkers Local 607L voted down on Friday a contract that would have allowed a private investor to move forward with the purchase of Zodiac Elastomer from its parent company.
The official said the company asked for wage concessions of about $1.80 an hour.
“In return, we offered a profit-sharing plan because we feel that moving forward, we could actually make money. We also offered a bonus program where if (employees) worked at better than 85 percent efficiency, we had a sliding scale that would allow them to recoup any of the concessions that they gave us. The recouping would be at roughly 100 percent,” the official said.
By helping the company work more efficiently, employees would have earned back everything they would lose through the hourly wage concession, the official said. “And there was no cap on this. If they were working at the 120 percent level, they would be making like $1.50 more than they currently make,” the official said.
“But they didn’t want to do that … They just wanted to get paid the same amount,” the official said.
The company, which has lost $30 million over the last 20 years on the Magnolia operations, offered and incentive program that would have provided employees an increase based on efficiency and would have paid a bonus at the end of the month that would allow employees to even make more money.
“Instead,” according to a company official, “we’re going to have to close the company.”
Because Arkansas is a Right-to-Work state, the union is the “exclusive bargaining representative” of all the employees in the bargaining unit, regardless of whether or not they are union members.
However, when contract offers are voted on, only union members are permitted to vote–even if a majority of the affected employees do not belong to the union.
As of now, though, it is unknown if the employees can overcome the legal obstacles and succeed in decertifying the union, whether or not the plant can be saved.
Read more at the Magnolia Reporter..
