Some 1,000 people work at the main mill here and a smaller facility in Hudson, New Hampshire, knitting polyester fabric. Seven hundred are production workers organized by UNITE HERE Local 311.

Several days earlier, local members had voted 231-198 to authorize a strike and reject what the company claimed was the initial offer, which included cutting the time laid off workers are covered by the company’s health insurance from three months to one month. In the offer that was adopted, the company restored the three-month coverage. In recent years a good portion of Malden Mills workers have been laid off for several months annually.

Union officials from the local and the New England Joint Board recommended adoption of the first and second offers.

This was the first contract negotiated by the mill’s new ownership, led by GE Commercial Finance, the financial arm of General Electric. Former owner Aaron Feuerstein lost control of the company when Malden Mills filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

The three-year contract includes annual wage increases of 2 percent, 2 percent, and 3 percent. However, health insurance premiums for individuals will triple from $6 to $18 a week in the first year and then to $25 and $31 the following two years. Family coverage will quadruple in the first year from $9 to $35 to a week, followed by increases to $40 and $45 in the next two years.

In November, 190 workers at Duro Finishing in Fall River, Massachusetts, accepted a concessions contract, including increased health insurance payments, after a six-week strike pushed back the company’s initial proposed cuts.  
 
 
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