Northwest labor press., May 17, 2013, Page 4, Image 4

...2,306 Precision Castparts workers eligible to vote
(From Page 1)
else. “We’re going to be a family, all together.”
For years, Machinists District Lodge W-24 has
kept in touch with a committee of union support-
ers at the company. But interest in unionization
spiked last year, says Machinists Grand Lodge
Representative Mike Rose, as PCC workers in-
creasingly contacted the IAM web site asking to
join the union. Rose attributes the increased inter-
est to management mistreatment, rising health
plan co-pays and deductibles, skimpy bonuses,
and a company decision to replace the traditional
defined benefit pension with a 401(k) for new
hires. But the biggest issue, lately, has been
mandatory overtime. PCC phased out new hiring
a year ago, Rose said, and is responding to boom-
ing demand with frequent short-notice require-
ments to work extra shifts on weekends.
“People can’t plan when they spend time with
family, and when they do, they have to cancel the
plans.”
At the meeting, workers speak of another rea-
son to want a union: Self-respect.
“They told us they could go to 7/11 or Walmart
to replace us,” says a PCC worker at the organiz-
ing meeting.
“If they could do that,” Rose replies, “they al-
ready would have done it. You have a skill.”
PCC, or PCP as it’s listed on the New York
Stock Exchange, is doing well, and can afford to
give raises. In its most recent annual report to
shareholders, it reported earnings of $1.2 billion
on $7.2 billion in sales, and paid its CEO, Mark
PAGE 4
Donegan, $11.5 million in total compensation.
Company sales rose 32 percent in two years.
The annual report also describes “satisfactory”
relations with unions: Collective bargaining agree-
ments cover 22 percent of PCC’s global workforce
of 21,480, and 12 of
those agreements, cov-
ering 11 percent of the
workforce, are up for
renegotiation this fiscal
year.
But at its Portland-
area facilities, PCC is
fighting unionization.
When the Machinists union made overtures to
workers last October, the company responded
with three days of mandatory meetings, Rose said.
The company appears to be running a by-the-book
anti-union campaign, advised by The Burke
Group, an anti-union consultancy based in Mal-
ibu, California.
The campaign relies on fear, Rose said —
threats and intimidation. Human resource man-
agers and company engineers are out on the shop
floor talking to workers one-on-one. Supervisors
with clipboards go around and ask workers which
way they’re voting. And in mandatory-attendance
meetings, managers sow doubts about the union
— how high dues will be, how uncertain the
prospects for getting a better deal. Though Ore-
gon law bars employers from disciplining workers
for not attending such meetings, it’s not clear
workers want to test the law by defying an order to
attend. But judging by workers’ accounts at the or-
ganizing meeting, there is some push-back at
those anti-union meetings.
“The first thing I asked the union-buster,” said
one worker, “was, ‘Do you have a contract?’ Yeah?
Well, there you go. We want one too.”
In the organizing meet-
ing, workers want answers
to things they’ve heard in
the workplace anti-union
meetings. Is it true that they
could lose what they have
now, in a negotiation?
No, Rose says. Legally,
the presumption is that the
status quo is the starting point in negotiations. By
law, once a union is voted in, an employer can’t
change wages or working conditions without bar-
gaining over it. Why would employees vote to ac-
cept a reduction? For that matter, why would the
company propose it? After all, before the union
came along, the company had total freedom to set
wages. The wages they make now are set by the
company. And as Rose put it, “If they could pay
you less, they would.”
“I personally feel that at the worst, we would
have what we’ve got now,” said another worker,
“but we’d know at least that we’d have that until
the next contract.” Without a contract, all wages
and working conditions are subject to change, over
which workers have no say.
Rose hopes PCC workers will join the union
family this time. Previous attempts by workers to
unionize failed in the 1970s and again in 1995 and
1996. In July 1995, the United Steelworkers lost
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
689 to 763. In the wake of the loss, the National
Labor Relations Board investigated and concluded
that the company had violated federal labor law in
the course of its anti-union campaign. So egre-
gious were the violations that the agency ordered
the election results overturned and a new election
scheduled. But PCC appealed the order to the
agency’s five-member board in Washington, D.C.
Rather than wait for the outcome of the appeal,
the Steelworkers requested a second election a
year later. This time, the union lost 573 to 1,127.
The Burke Group advised PCC last time
around, too. Rose says Precision has violated labor
law, though the union has not yet made that case to
the National Labor Relations Board. One such vi-
olation — if the union can substantiate it — is a
management threat to shut down and move to
South Carolina.
“In ’96, it was the same threat,” Rose tells the
Labor Press. “At that time, they had bought a po-
tato field in eastern Washington and were going
to move the plant there.”
If the 2,306 PCC workers join the Machinists,
it would be a major expansion for District Lodge
W24, which had 6,525 members as of its most re-
cent annual report. Aiding the pro-union worker
committee is the entire District Lodge staff, plus
staff from the Oregon AFL-CIO, and dozens of
member volunteers from Boeing. After filing April
12 for an election, the union received a legally-
mandated employee list May 1, and began a cam-
paign of home visits May 6. Rose said the cam-
paign hopes to have a conversation with every
worker before the June 6-7 election.
MAY 17, 2013