BY JOE CALLAHAN AND JEFF JONES
MINNEAPOLIS - By a 1,024-to-1,016 vote, members of Teamsters Local 1145 accepted a new contract offer by Honeywell at a stormy union meeting at the Minneapolis Convention Center on February 15. Workers returned to work the following day at the three Honeywell plants in this area, which had been shut for two weeks by the walkout. The company manufactures electronic controls for war planes and other aircraft.

This contract offer dropped a proposal for a two-tier system of medical insurance benefits with new workers having to make 20 percent co-payments. But it includes a two-tier wage setup under which new hires will start at $9 an hour and take four years to catch up to current employees who make $12 an hour. The contract also forces new hires to accept a cash buyout pension rather than the defined benefit option available to present employees.

Workers who opposed the contract were strongly against these concessions, and also felt that the wage and pension increases were inadequate. The contract provides wage increases of 4 percent the first two years and 3 percent the following two. At a February 13 rally of 300 people outside the company's northeast Minneapolis plant, speaker after speaker denounced the contract as not being much different than the one rejected earlier by workers by a 58 percent to 42 percent margin. Many workers were upset at the results of the meeting and vowed to protest the vote count. Others said they were glad to be going back to work.

"We could have won a lot more if we had stayed out another week," said Charlene Parsons, a screw machine operator at Honeywell's Golden Valley production plant. Defeating the 20 percent medical co-payment was "very important," she said. "If that had been accepted the company would have proposed it for everybody in the next contract and it would have been difficult to defeat." But "the two-tier agreement on wages and benefits that were accepted are very bad for us," Parsons added.

Don Miller, who works in the cafeteria of the Camden plant, said, "I voted no on the contract proposal, but I think the strike wasn't really worth it," citing the low wage increases.

"It was worth it," said Kevin, a worker at the Minneapolis production plant who asked that his last name not be printed. Pointing to Honeywell's retreat on the medical co-payment issue, he said, "The company was feeling heat from our strike. We made a statement."

Joe Callahan is a member of United Auto Workers Local 879. Jeff Jones is a member of International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 1833. Tom Fiske, also a member of the IAM, contributed to this article.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home