Wilsonville factory workers vote to strike at Xerox
Profitable printer
maker wants to cut
disability benefit
even after workers
agreed to freeze
pension
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Xerox factory workers in
Wilsonville, Oregon, voted over-
whelmingly Oct. 13 to authorize a
strike.
Xerox revenue grew 42 percent last
year to $21.6 billion, and it paid its
CEO Ursula Burns $13.2 million. But
Xerox is proposing deep pension cuts
and other concessions for the 183
members of Service Employees Inter-
national Union (SEIU) Local 49 at its
Wilsonville color printer complex,
which it acquired from Tektronix in
2000.
“It’s corporate greed,” said chief
steward Gary Daniels. “Xerox doesn’t
need to do this. They’re making profits.
They’re doing great.”
Union bargaining is where you see
the soul of an employer. Earlier this
year, a Xerox negotiator showed in a
PowerPoint presentation all its union-
ized U.S. locations that have down-
sized or moved work overseas. The ex-
ception, the negotiator said, was the
Xerox facility in Cerritos, California:
Because the union made concessions,
Xerox is bringing back some work.
Get the message?
All over the country, says Local 49
organizer Casey Filice, Xerox is de-
manding that its unions accept dimin-
ished retiree benefits. Xerox has about
130,000 employees worldwide.
In Wilsonville, union members
work in cleanrooms making print
heads with a specialized solid ink
crayon. Those are sent to Malaysia for
assembly into printer cartridges in
high-end office printers. Union mem-
bers in another building ship and re-
ceive printers and prepare printers for
end users.
About 1,400 nonunion employees
also work at the Wilsonville complex,
including technicians, administrators,
and customer service call center work-
ers. In June, the company informed
120 nonunion engineers that they were
no longer employees of Xerox. They
do the same work at the same desks,
but now work for contractor HCL, an
Indian company that specializes in en-
gineering outsourcing.
Meanwhile, Local 49 members
agreed to freeze their own pensions in
order to preserve a set of benefits for
50 retired members who don’t get to
vote on the contract. The traditional
“defined benefit” pension will be
frozen at the end of 2012, meaning
workers will no longer accumulate
‘OCCUPY XEROX’ — A contingent of Xerox printer manufacturing
workers from Wilsonville, members of SEIU Local 49, joined with Occupy
Portland protesters for an Oct. 15 march. Pictured above is unit President
Brian Wood, 44, a 12-year employee at Xerox Wilsonville, showing strike
support stickers and carrying a sign that says “Occupy Xerox.” Workers
there voted two days earlier to authorize a strike.
new pension benefits. Instead, workers
will rely on an interest-bearing “cash
balance retirement account” into which
Xerox deposits 4 percent of pay. Chief
steward Daniels, 31, calculates the
change will cost him $30,000 if he re-
tires at age 65.
Wages among the union members
average $14 an hour. About half would
New journey-level painters, tapers and floor coverers
More than a dozen painters, drywall finishers and floor coverers graduated from their respective apprenticeship
training programs at the Regional Training Center, Western Oregon/SW Washington Painters, Drywall Finishers and
Allied Trades Apprenticeship. Graduates received a plaque, a Carhartt jacket, and tools of their trade at a dinner in
their honor Oct. 13 attended by union officials and contractors of the Signatory Painting Contractors Organization.
Among them was Painters and Allied Trades District Council 5 Business Manager Denis Sullivan. New journeymen
and women are from left: Chad Daly, Dustin Schwindt, Ryan Burlingame, Jaime Garcia, Ross Springsted, Claudia
Marron, Brent Wright, Angel Olea, Sergio Gonzales, Jason Kotar, Julio Mena, Charles Pennell, and Dusty Hagen.
Graduates not pictured are Alesha Olson, Geoff Sutherland, James Walker, and Jeff Buffington. The new journeymen
and women are members of Portland-based Painters and Drywall Finishers Local 10 and Salem-based Local 724,
and Portland-based Linoleum Layers Local 1236.
PAGE 8
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
get no raise under Xerox’ proposal,
while the other half — those a com-
pany-sponsored labor market survey
identified as underpaid for their occu-
pational classification — would get
raises averaging 2.4 percent. Xerox
also agreed to lump sum bonuses of
2.5 and 2.75 percent.
The company did drop some earlier
demands for concessions, including
eliminating sick days and reducing pay
up to 50 percent for long-term employ-
ees. The union contract allows Xerox
to use nonunion temps for up to 30 per-
cent of the workforce, and Xerox also
dropped a demand to take that up to 50
percent.
And Xerox agreed that the workers
may enroll in a union-sponsored
Kaiser Permanente health plan that
provides better benefits at lower cost to
employees — for the same cost to the
company.
But in return for that cost-neutral
concession, Xerox is demanding that a
short-term disability benefit for union
workers be cut — while keeping it for
managers and nonunion workers.
That’s become a sticking point for the
union. Their short term disability plan
restores 80 percent of a worker’s pay
for six months in the event of a serious
illness or accident outside of work.
Managers have the same benefit, but at
100 percent of pay. Xerox wants to cut
the union benefit to 60 percent of pay,
for five months, and introduce a one-
week waiting period before the benefit
begins.
“It’s about surviving,” Daniels said.
“This could make or break a family.
It’s difficult already to go down to 80
percent.”
The cost difference between the
company and the union position would
total $60,000 over the duration of the
contract, Filice said — one day’s wage
for CEO Burns.
The Local 49 contract at Xerox ex-
pired in July, but was extended through
Oct. 13 by mutual agreement. Since
the Oct. 13 vote authorizing the union
bargaining committee to call a strike,
members have been working without a
contract.
Because the United States has one
of the worst sets of labor laws in the
world, employers have the right to
“permanently replace” employees who
strike. The exception, under the law, is
when workers strike to protest labor
law violations known as “unfair labor
practices.” Employers can still replace
strikers, but not permanently.
Local 49 has filed an unfair labor
practice charge with the National La-
bor Relations Board, accusing Xerox
of surveillance and intimidation after
managers showed up and tried to listen
in when union members met to ex-
change information during “unity
breaks” in the workplace.
To prepare for a strike, workers are
signing strike pledges, wearing yellow
stickers that say “I signed the strike
pledge,” and taking part in a “unity
clap” during shift change.
“Nobody wants to go on strike,”
Daniels told the Labor Press, “but peo-
ple can see themselves not surviving
on what the company’s proposed.”
Filice said members are unlikely to
strike until at least one more meeting
with the company.
A meeting was set for Oct. 20.
Carroll tapped for
Public Facilities
District board
VANCOUVER
— Bob Carroll, an
organizer for the
International
Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers
Local 48, has been
appointed to the B OB C ARROLL
Vancouver Public
Facilities District (PFD) board of di-
rectors.
The PFD was created by the Van-
couver City Council as a municipal
corporation authorized to acquire, con-
struct, own, remodel, maintain, equip,
re-equip, repair, finance, and operate
one or more “regional centers,” such as
the City’s Convention Center.
The five-member PFD board is ap-
pointed by the City Council. Members
are selected based upon recommenda-
tions from local organizations that in-
clude local economic development or-
ganizations, local labor councils, the
Vancouver Chamber of Commerce,
and at-large.
All terms are four years.
Carroll is a labor representative on
the board. He succeeds Ed Barnes, a
retired business manager of IBEW Lo-
cal 48, who has served the limit of two
terms on the board.
OCTOBER 21, 2011