...Daimler strike
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that employ Machinists in Oregon and
Washington. The trust had major losses
in the financial crash that began in 2008,
and participating employers are legally
obligated to pay extra to make up the
shortfall. Daimler’s rehabilitation sur-
charge will reach $5.58 an hour by 2015
— and that’s in addition to its regular
$4.47-per-hour pension contribution.
The financial crisis may have caused
the pension shortfall, but past decisions
by Daimler made it worse. Fifteen years
ago, the Portland plant had over 2,000
production workers; today there are
725. By shifting production to Mexico
and North and South Carolina, Daimler
caused the pension to become top-
heavy, with relatively few active em-
ployees, and many retirees and inactive
former employees.
And the company isn’t the only one
feeling the pain of the pension losses.
The losses forced pension trustees to cut
the rate at which benefits accrue, and
eliminate supplemental disability cov-
erage and a subsidized early retirement
benefit.
The pension surcharge pertained
only to the machinists, but Kear said the
four unions stood together throughout
the joint bargaining. The pay and health
care premium increases were the same
in all four contracts, which were voted
on separately.
Machinists and Painters members
determined that the proposed wage in-
creases — 60 cents, 40 cents, and 30
cents — weren’t enough, coming after a
four-year wage freeze.
And many workers felt they never
really caught up after agreeing to wage
concessions in 2001 under company
threat of plant closure. Wages were
$19.05 then, and are $23.25 today.
Workers also said they want to share
the economic benefits of increased pro-
ductivity — not just the costs. Since a
system of “lean” manufacturing and
continuous improvement was intro-
duced several years ago, productivity at
the plant has increased 25 percent. The
same number of trucks are produced,
but with 25 percent fewer workers.
Layoffs — like the 250 workers let
go March 1, have swept the assembly
line of younger members. Those who
remain take retirement benefits very se-
riously. When during the contract dis-
cussion one Lodge 1005 member asked
how many in the room were 50 or over,
at least half the hands shot up.
Past concessions have created three
tiers of retiree health benefits: New
hires have no company-paid health ben-
efits when they retire; a previous group
gets health benefits until they turn 65
and become eligible for Medicare; the
oldest group, numbering 111, gets that,
plus supplemental insurance after they
turn 65. Eliminating the post-65 cover-
age was like salt in a paper cut, one
worker told the Labor Press.
Despite its flaws, Lodge 1005’s bar-
gaining team recommended approving
Daimler’s offer, saying at the time that it
was the best they expected to see from
the company. But they weren’t sur-
prised at the outcome.
Lodge 1005 members turned down
the company’s offer in a 102 to 309
vote, and then voted to strike by an even
greater margin, 359 to 48.
“Money is not the bottom line,” said
one Lodge1005 member. “Personal
pride is.”
Of course, money and personal pride
are linked. Workers know truck sales
are booming and quarterly profits are
increasing. Yet their wages have been
frozen. Every day to get to work, they
go through the employee entrance,
passing knee-high weeds by the em-
ployee parking lot and crossing railroad
DAY ONE ON STRIKE AT DAIMLER: Machinists Local 1005 members Todd Barnes, Jeff Bowes, Mike Brandt,
Mike Coelho, and Terry Weese picket outside a plant gate six to noon July 1.
tracks. Three years after Lodge 1005
bargained into its union contract a com-
pany commitment to improve ventila-
tion in malodorous restrooms, that has-
n’t happened. Meanwhile, company
managers drive Mercedes Benzes into
separate parking lots through landscap-
ing maintained by SEIU Local 49
members. They eat in separate areas,
and have separate, cleaner, restrooms.
“They consider themselves above
and apart from employees, and the em-
ployees feel it,” Kear said.
Pickets began Sunday at midnight,
and continue 24 hours a day at three en-
trances to the truck plant, as well as a
fourth location where pre-delivery in-
spections are performed.
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NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
JULY 5, 2013