BY FRANK FORRESTAL AND TOM ALTER
MOLINE, Illinois - In a close vote United Auto Workers (UAW) members at Case Corp. rejected the company's contract offer by a margin of 52 percent. UAW Local 1304, which is based in East Moline and has 1,200 members, voted the contract down by a resounding 81 percent. Case employs 3,300 workers at five plants in the Midwest.

The contract was voted up by 55 percent of the membership in Racine, Wisconsin, where Case's corporate headquarters are located. In Burlington, Iowa, UAW members approved it by a margin of 64 percent.

Moline is one of four cities that make up the Quad Cities. This area is a major farm equipment, meatpacking, railroad, and trucking center in the Midwest.

UAW members have been working without a contract since March 29. Along with John Deere and Caterpillar, Case is a leading manufacturer of construction and farm equipment. The majority of workers at all three companies are organized by the UAW. Union members at both John Deere and Caterpillar recently approved six-year contracts containing concessions. Workers at Caterpillar plants waged a six-and-a-half-year battle against the construction equipment giant, and in the process won back jobs for 160 workers fired for union activity.

Since negotiations began earlier this year, tensions between Case and the union have been running high. One worker reported that the company has fired two unionists and suspended four more at the East Moline plant since the contract expired. In February Case let it be known that they had hired a scab outfit, Strom Engineering, to recruit strikebreakers throughout the Midwest. With this threat hanging over their heads, UAW members began organizing for a showdown.

The union set a strike deadline for 10:30 p.m. April 23. At that time, pickets went up at Case plants throughout the Midwest in a short-lived strike. Union officials called it off just before midnight, announcing that a tentative agreement had been reached.

From the beginning UAW officials said it would be a short strike. In East Moline, Dick Sanders, a local official, said, "Fifteen minutes from now, we may not be on strike," according to the Dispatch, a local big-business daily.

Even with this stance, UAW members headed to the picket lines. Sanders's "strike announcement was met with shouts of `let's get the signs' from workers. Some quickly formed lines along the fence as others left in cars, most honking their horns," reported the Dispatch. Sanders told the Dispatch reporter, "I like one hour and 15 minute strikes. The economic impact is tolerable."

Picket lines were also thrown up in Racine and Burlington. Here, too, the union leadership called them off before the strike really got going. Displaying their determination, one picket carried a sign reading, "Cat and Deere, Not Here."

One Case worker in Moline told the Militant he thought the strike "never should have been called off. We had our foot in the door. We should have opened it all the way." In retrospect, he thought the reason for the short strike was to "blow off some steam."

The UAW-Case negotiating committee urged union members to approve the contract. In a letter signed by UAW vice president Richard Shoemaker and Paul Korman, director of UAW Region 4, entitled, "A Recommendation to Case Members," the union officials wrote, "Through the solidarity of the UAW Case members, your Negotiating Committee has reached a tentative agreement which protects and advances the interests of all current Case workers, and allows the company to continue the growth of bargaining-unit employment."

The letter ends with, "We join with your Negotiating Committee in unanimously recommending the tentative new agreement for your ratification." As the voting results show, UAW members in their majority didn't think the contract would "protect and advance" their interests.

As workers filed into the ratification meeting here, it was clear that the overwhelming majority planned to vote "No." "The biggest problem for me," said Milt Brown, a member of UAW Local 1304, "is that new hires will start at 70 percent [of the maximum rate] and not reach what others get for five years." In the previous contract Case workers got to the top rate in three years. "This is a form of discrimination against young workers. I believe in equal pay for equal work," said Brown.

More than any other issue, workers were angry with the provisions that dealt with new hires. "I would not want my kids working here. New people are getting shafted," said Kurt Mitchell, who has worked at the East Moline plant for 23 years. He pointed out that new workers would not receive health coverage after retiring.

The ratification meeting here lasted about two hours. The meeting began with UAW Local 1304 president Dean Prine reviewing the provisions contained in the agreement. Then there was a question-and-answer period. Outbursts of booing, clapping, and foot stomping could be heard outside the auditorium. In some ways the mood was similar to the raucous Caterpillar ratification meetings held in central Illinois earlier this year. Workers there rejected the first contract by a wide margin.

At the end of the meeting, Prine said, "If the contract gets voted down, all the issues will be on the table." This was met with loud cheers, followed by chants of "Vote, Vote, Vote."

A small minority of workers in East Moline said they voted for the contract. In Racine, Wisconsin, there was general discontent with the contract proposal. Most asserted the contract contained "a lot of bad things," but that it would probably pass.

In Burlington, Iowa, where the contract received the largest "Yes" vote, there was mixed discontent with the contract proposal as well. While several workers said that they were frustrated they hadn't struck the company longer, some said the contract was bad but not bad enough to strike.

Karen Richardson, a new hire at the Burlington plant said, "... It's not a good contract.... We haven't gained; they've only taken away from us."

Not using the most diplomatic language, one angry worker who works at the East Moline plant, said, "We lose our ass, the whole package sucks," a statement echoed by many. The provisions on new hires were bad, but there were many other concessions as well, these workers said.

Lump sums, not wage increases
The contract does not contain a wage increase for production workers. Instead workers will get yearly lump sum payments of three percent, which never gets rolled into their wages. Several workers commented that they had not received a yearly wage increase since the last strike in 1979. Skilled trade workers will receive 75 cents over six years. Case wages are $2-$3 less than what UAW members receive at the Big Three plants (GM, Ford, and Chrysler).

Many said they didn't like the proposed changes in piece- rate and the new four-day 10-hour or three-day 12-hour work weeks. Case is proposing to restructure the piece-rate incentive system. Called Case Continuous Improvement Compensation System (CCICS) and patterned after a similar plan at John Deere, it is based on a "team rather than an individual, and on continuous improvement rather than a set standard."

In describing the new system, a few workers said they saw it as a way to "cheat" workers out of money. One UAW member said he thought he would probably lose around $150 a week under the new system.

Another bone of contention was health insurance. Militant reporters talked with Roy and Jerry Hoskins, retired Local 1304 members. They both said they are worried by the language in the summary agreement. "From what we know, along with eliminating insurance for new people when they retire there will no longer be 30 years and out," one said. The brothers are veterans of the union. They began working for International Harvester (IH) in the late 1940s. Roy Hoskins said the company tried to break the union in 1949. Both of them have weathered strikes since then. Workers stopped making gains, they said, after 1979. In November of that year, some 35,000 IH workers in nine states walked out. The UAW members held firm against IH's "take aways," and after six months won their strike.

As for retirees, they both pointed out that a few weeks ago they received letters saying that from now on they would have to pay $56 a month to their insurance company. Previously, they had 100 percent coverage. Roy Hoskins was particularly irate when he found out that his wife was placed in a different health plan from his own without him knowing about it.

Another eye-catcher in the contract summary is the section called, "Understanding Regarding Permanent Replacements." It says in part, "Case Corporation has, in the interest of our long term relationship, elected to refrain from continuing production operations by hiring new employees as permanent replacements for striking workers."

In the event of a strike, according to the letter, "the UAW recognizes that Case must continue to protect equipment, facilities and, most importantly, fulfill its commitments to customers by using salary employees as are available to continue critically necessary operations in an orderly manner." Some Case workers said they saw this as a partial backing off of the threat to hire scabs, but they still didn't like the sound of this so-called "letter of understanding."

The company allowed workers three hours off so that UAW members could vote on the contract, but with one catch. One Case worker pulled a company flyer out of his bag that said employees would get paid for those three hours only if they voted for the contract. Many Case workers got a good laugh out of that. For now, union officials are urging their members to continue working without a contract. No new talks are in the offing.

Tom Alter is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1149 in Perry, Iowa. Maggie Trowe from Des Moines and Joel Britton and Claudia Hommel from Chicago contributed to this article.  
 
 
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