BY RAY PARSONS
BURLINGTON, Iowa - Some 3,300 United Auto Workers (UAW)
members were working without a contract at Case Corp. as
negotiations between the UAW and Case continued beyond the
March 29 expiration of the current agreement. Case is a major
producer of farm and construction equipment with five plants
in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota.
Unionists at Case plants in East Moline, Illinois, and Burlington, Iowa, have told the Militant that the company is seeking to impose increased mandatory overtime and cuts in benefits for current and future retirees.
In the days leading up to the original March 29 deadline, UAW locals approved strike authorization votes by big margins. The unionists and their supporters have been organizing rallies and other events to oppose the company's demands.
Retired unionists organized informational picketing to protest the company's proposed cuts in pensions. Some 40 workers turned out for one such action in Burlington, and similar protests were held in East Moline and Racine, Wisconsin.
In East Moline, workers organized a rally and car-horn honking at shift changes to protest the company's demands and to build solidarity. In Burlington, auto workers organized "hammers down for justice." At preset times, three or four times a day, workers throughout the plant would stop work and pound hammers and tools in protest.
Twenty workers at the Burlington facility called off work on March 26. The company moved to discipline the unionists, but did not say when, or for how long, they would be suspended.
In a March 29 press release, UAW vice president Richard Shoemaker was quoted as saying, "The parties have made some progress in the negotiations. As long as progress continues to be made, we want to continue the bargaining process."
In a March 31 interview a member of UAW Local 807 in Burlington, who asked not to be identified, reported that so far no contract points had been signed off in the negotiations, except for health and safety provisions some three weeks ago.
Meanwhile, advertisements for replacement workers for Case continued to appear as late as March 29 in the Des Moines Register.
Workers at Bridgestone/Firestone in Des Moines, Iowa, members of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 310, picketed in front of Strom Engineering, the temp agency recruiting scabs for Case, on March 6 and again on March 20. The unionists passed out flyers explaining, "We were replaced and together we won our jobs back. If workers everywhere don't stand together now and say NO MORE it could be your job next. Help us save someone from being replaced."
Bridgestone/Firestone, a major tire producer, was the scene of a hard-fought strike in 1994-95. The company "permanently replaced" thousands of strikers in January 1995. Most strikers returned to work by June of 1996, and a new contract with the USWA was signed in December 1996.
Ray Parsons is a member of USWA Local 310 at Bridgestone/Firestone in Des Moines.