Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 16, 1991 TAG: 9103160065
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: George Kegley
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A thousand workers, members of the Carpenters Union, voted March 2 to strike the Brunswick Corp.'s defense products plant at Marion. Another 800 members of the United Auto Workers went on strike March 8 at the Volvo-GM Heavy Truck Corp. plant in Dublin.
Generally, employees are less willing to strike when there are fewer other opportunities and fewer substitute jobs, said Dane M. Partridge, an assistant professor of management who teaches labor relations at Virginia Tech.
Normally, employees are less likely to go out on strike "unless things are really bad," said Kent Murrman, another VPI professor.
Union members may have less bargaining power in a recession, Partridge said, and employers may be more likely to provoke a strike if the union is weaker.
Generally, the number of strikes is related to the business cycle, he said. "As business improves, you see more strikes over time," he said.
But in the past decade, behavior of employers and of a union has become a stronger force than the economy, Partridge said.
Consider that in the 1980s, he said, union strike activity dropped to record low levels. Conventional wisdom would have suggested an increase in the number of strikes during the long recovery after the 1982 recession.
A reversal from the norm indicates that there are "more matters than just economic activity," he added. Indeed, both the UAW and the Carpenters Union in Southwest Virginia acted on issues overriding the recession, and a high percentage of members voted for both strikes.
Economic issues - pay rates and benefits - have been mentioned by both unions in the current strikes. But the Carpenters say seniority and contract language is part of their concern.
And UAW strikers said they are "fighting to keep jobs." Joe Parah, president of UAW Local 2069, said the company's claim that its offer of an increased pension and no reduction in health insurance is "misleading."
They are striking at a time when Volvo-GM truck production has been cut from 60 to 36 units a day, causing layoffs of 383 workers. The risk to Dublin employees increased last week when Volvo-GM began transferring production to other plants.
In Detroit, Reginald McGhee, a public relations man for UAW, said, "There are times when local conditions are such that a union has to act," even in a poor economy.
Myron DeBord, president of Carpenters Local 1764 in Marion, said the economy "wouldn't have mattered" because his union did not like the contract language. As a defense products manufacturer, Brunswick is not directly linked to the economy. The company has had no comment on the strike.
Gerald Moody, a Roanoke area organizer for the International Union of Electronic Workers, traces 90 percent of today's strikes to health care issues. "Even the companies are agreeing that something has got to be done," he said.
Moody and most labor people see health care as a problem that must be addressed by Congress. The AFL-CIO has pushed for years for a national system that incorporates Medicare and Medicaid.
Another issue stirring labor unions is legislation in Congress that would ban the use of permanent replacement workers hired during strikes.
This is a controversial proposal and it is strongly opposed by U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other corporate interests. It has had "a seductive effect on many employers," the AFL-CIO Executive Council said at its recent Bal Harbour, Fla., meeting.
For employers, "the opportunity to hire permanent replacements is an incentive to provoke strikes, to recruit a more pliant, non-union work force and to renounce any further employment relationship with their union workers."
Moody and Frank Rothweiler, another IUE man, have been working on an organizing program and contract renewal talks involving a union health plan at Aerofin Inc., a Lynchburg steel company. At Aerofin there is a campaign under way to organize salaried workers as well as renewal of the contract covering the rest of the company.
When that is settled, the next major challenge for Moody and Rothweiler is to negotiate renewal of the IUE contract that expires June 14 at the Roanoke County ITT plant. These talks will be tough, both men said.
Also, the IUE agreement at the General Electric plant runs out at the end of June and the United Rubber Workers pact at Mohawk Rubber is up for renewal in late August.
GE and ITT have good earnings and the unions know it. "When a company is doing well, the unions expect more," said Partridge of Virginia Tech.
While sales and profits of GE and ITT are a matter of public record, Mohawk's are not.
But workers at Mohawk Rubber see expansion under way at the Salem plant to increase tire production capacity for its new owner, Yokohama Rubber Co. of Japan. The Japanese owners are expected to be hard bargainers and the Rubber Workers have the reputation of an aggressive union.
by CNB