Workers struck June 10 over the bosses’ demands to increase the cost of medical coverage and cut pension benefits. The company won concessions on these points in the new contract.

Maytag is the third-largest U.S. manufacturer of household appliances, including washing machines and clothes dryers.

While 1,525 workers returned to work July 6, another 400 who had been laid off prior to the strike were told they would not be reinstated.

During the strike the company had ordered these workers to cross the picket line, but nearly all of the 400 told Maytag that their union was on strike and so they would not cross the line. Some 300 of these laid off workers also showed up for work July 6, expecting, at worst, to be told that their layoff status would continue, enabling them to receive health insurance benefits and remain eligible for unemployment compensation.

Instead the company told the workers they were “un-reinstated strikers.” UAW Local 997 president Pat Teed told them at the union hall afterwards that the union will file a grievance on their behalf in order to maintain their layoff status, the Des Moines Register reported.

Jeff Clark, one of the 400 who the company calls “un-reinstated strikers,” told the press that the grievance procedure could take up to two years. “They should have negotiated something into that contract,” he said.

Through decades of struggles the union had won low-cost medical plans and company-paid pensions. Wages are $18 to $19 per hour. Under provisions of the new contract, workers will pay 10-20 percent of their health-care costs, along with a deductible. They will receive a single 2.5 percent wage increase and five lump sum payments of $500-$600 over the life of the four-year contract.

Workers hired after June 1, 2004, will not be eligible for the existing pension, but will be offered a 401(k) plan instead, that is, a sum invested in the stock market and thus vulnerable to any burst of the financial bubble on Wall Street. Currently retirees have a full medical insurance plan. After 2008, retirees’ medical coverage beyond age 65 will be eliminated.

Increased medical costs include $15 to $50 per pay period for insurance coverage, a required $200 deductible for individuals and $400 for families, plus out-of-pocket medical expenses of up to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families

Although vote totals have not been released, Teed told the press that the majority voted to accept the contract.

Randy Sapp, who has 10 years at Maytag, expressed relief that an agreement had been reached, but said he isn’t content with the new contract.

“It is not what we wanted,” he told the Newton Daily News. “It’s just one battle in an ongoing war…and the war goes on. We don’t like giving up what we gave up, but you can’t go out and start somewhere else at where we’re at now.” Kyle VanZante disagreed with the one-time wage increase over the contract, because union members had won annual wage increases for the past three years. “There’s nothing there for new hires,” he said.
 
 
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