
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991                   TAG: 9104110481
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: MARION                                LENGTH: Medium

CONTRACT OK'D AT BRUNSWICK

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners voted Wednesday to end its 40-day strike against Brunswick Corp., but not enthusiastically.

Union members voted 329-244 in favor of returning to work today.

But some were grumbling as they left the voting place after Local 1764 President Myron DeBord announced the outcome.

Amy Norris said the new three-year contract stinks. She said she needed to go back to work to get money to pay her growing pile of bills, but she did not like the conditions.

Acceptance of the new contract - a result of 5 1/2 hours of negotiations last week in the third meeting between union and company representatives - by less than an overwhelming margin is not encouraging, DeBord told a reporter. "That'll create problems for us when we go back."

Brunswick has about 1,100 employees and is the largest employer in Smyth County.

Eighty-nine people had been laid off before the strike, and the company announced Wednesday that another 90 would be temporarily laid off from three days to two weeks until production at the defense plant gets geared up again.

The union members walked off their jobs March 2 when the previous contract expired. The company had offered a 7 percent wage increase over three years. The union wanted 7 percent in each of the three years, a total of 21 percent.

The new contract increases the wage schedule by 30 cents an hour today, another 30 cents April 11, 1992, and 30 cents more April 11, 1993. It also gives all active employees a $250 lump sum payment.

But one union member, who would not give his name, complained that the bonus is coming off the pensions of the workers and so is no real gain. "The damned right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing," he said. "It looks like they're trying to slip a few things over on us."

He admitted he had not heard all the provisions of the proposed agreement at union meetings. "To tell the truth, I didn't even stay to listen to 'em explain the whole contract."

by CNB